Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass
by The Talentless Hack
Summary: AU, SaitouTokio, WIP. The oddball romance that almost never was. CH. 39: Fish and Visitors. Rated for language and situations.
1. Sweet, In A Demented Sort of Way

**A/N:** I've actually been sitting on this one for a while (I'd say at least two to three months), but I desperately need something to amuse myself with so I don't go nutso, and this is going to be a lot lighter than _Dead_, so it should be just the ticket. I _can't_ promise timely updates (as those of you familiar with my posting schedule can attest to), but I _can_ promise to eventually finish. **Advance Warning:** There will be moments of insanity, since I'm sort of feeling a little insane these days. Of course, I've never been in great mental health to start with….

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Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

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Words To Watch Out For:

Chiisai: tiny

(And I'm pretty sure that's about it. If not, feel free to send me a scathing denunciation. I'll reply…eventually….)

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

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_**Chapter One: Sweet…In A Demented Sort of Way**_

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It didn't happen very often, but sometimes, Saitou Hajime wondered what had possessed him to become a cop.

He could have done so many other things. He could have been a teacher, for example. Contrary to popular belief, he actually liked to instruct. He liked passing on his knowledge.

…Of course…he _did_ rather detest other people's children….

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the ideal line of work for him. He supposed he could have become a writer; he was reasonably articulate, and he told pretty good stories.

…Then again…the idea of living in abject poverty for the rest of his life should he never write a best-seller rather dampened that prospect.

He didn't have the patience to put katana together, though he did love working with them. Perhaps, assistant instructor at a dojo? But then he'd be dealing with other people's children again….

Saitou sighed and rubbed his temple, irritated.

Actually, in all honesty, he liked his job. He made decent money, didn't really have to deal with other people's children, and could smoke as much as he wanted…

"Really officer, I wasn't doing anything! I was asking for directions, honest!" the man standing before him in full hooker drag protested.

…he just wished he didn't always get the weirdoes.

"You do realize that soliciting customers in broad daylight is not only _very_ illegal, it's also the _height_ of stupidity, right?" Saitou asked, voice brooking no argument.

"I swear, officer, I wasn't soliciting anything! Well, directions maybe, but nothing else!"

Off to the side, his fellow officer and longtime friend Okita Souji was laughing. The bastard didn't even have the decency to pretend he wasn't enjoying this, and Saitou made a mental note to make Okita miserable later by driving with the windows up while he was smoking. He wouldn't do it for long—his friend's lungs were bad, and Saitou wasn't totally heartless—but he'd get the s.o.b. back for this later, gods help him.

Saitou decided he didn't want to deal with the man, so he glanced over at Okita, and smirked; Okita's smile fell off his face.

"Lieutenant Okita," Saitou said dryly. "Seeing as how you dragged this…_man_…in, don't you suppose you should be the one dealing with him?"

"Oh, but Assistant Inspector," Okita replied, smiling slyly, "you being my superior and all, I figured _you'd_ want to handle this _personally_."

Saitou's smirk widened.

"And deprive you of the pleasure? I wouldn't dream of it. In fact, I order you to take the privilege away from me."

Okita glared at him, but because Saitou had now delivered an order, there was nothing he could do—aside from doing what Saitou had ordered, that is. So, rolling his eyes, he grabbed the guy in drag by the arm and shoved him forward.

"I'll get you," Okita muttered as he walked by Saitou.

Saitou pulled out a new cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, still smirking.

"I doubt it, but you're welcome to try."

Okita grumbled something under his breath and the guy in drag loudly protested that he honestly hadn't done anything wrong, honest. Saitou lit his cigarette with one of the wooden matches he insisted on carrying around instead of a more practical lighter, and watched his friend shove the guy along.

And then there was that warm, fuzzy feeling he got in the cockles of his heart when he had managed to irritate Okita….

Feh—he doubted teaching other people's children could be as fulfilling as _that_ feeling of accomplishment.

Saitou strolled back to his desk and sat down to finish up the last hundred or so reports he had left. He despised red tape on principle, but he was getting paid a lot more money now as an assistant inspector for the criminal investigations department, so what little bitching he voiced about the paperwork was low enough that his superiors never heard it—he was disgruntled, not stupid.

His desk, usually so immaculate—an obsessive-compulsive neat-freak would have been the politest way of describing him—was this day littered with papers everywhere, and his ashtray was overflowing; he tended to up his cigarette intake in response to chaos, and it was everywhere today.

"The world's gone insane," he muttered around his cigarette as he shuffled the papers on his desk into some semblance of order.

Or at least, this particular corner of the world had gone insane.

The criminal investigations department had never been so swamped with work. Then again, they'd never been able to nail a particular gang of yakuza punks until now. Saitou was only mildly pleased by that development, though—the rounding up of the yakuza meant a mountain of paperwork for him, since he'd been the officer in charge of the sting that had led to their capture.

Sometimes, it was good to be the king.

And sometimes, being a peon didn't sound half bad.

He dutifully got through eight reports before he decided it was time for lunch. And he _knew_ it was time for lunch when he glanced over at his ashtray and counted eight new cigarette butts, one for each report.

"Hm." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Time for soba. And Chiisai."

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Takagi Tokio decided never to not sleep ever again—it simply wasn't worth the constant zoning out the next day.

She yawned hugely and rubbed at her weary eyes as she ducked into the luncheonette where she usually ate her noon meal, and bumped into someone who was walking out.

"Oh gods I'm sorry," she immediately apologized.

"Don't worry about it," the older woman said with a faint smile. "Long night?"

Tokio groaned.

"You have no idea."

The woman chuckled and continued on her way, and Tokio walked to the counter. She was not surprised to see a certain police inspector leaning against the counter and watching her, amber eyes twinkling in a manner which bore her no good will.

"Good afternoon Saitou-san," she said politely, head bobbing.

"Tokio-san," he replied. Pause (_Here it comes_, Tokio thought with a sigh). "We're quite graceful today, I see."

"Ha ha ha," she replied, setting her purse down on the counter and turning to look at the woman behind it. She forced herself to smile. "Hi Shiori-san."

"Tokio-san! You're late today." Shiori replied.

"Yeah, well," Tokio replied gloomily. "The meeting ran over."

"You look awful," Shiori said, concerned. "Doesn't she look awful Saitou-san?"

"Absolutely," he agreed absently, impatiently tapping his fingers on the countertop. "Is Kuno done with my order yet?"

"Let me check," Shiori offered.

"_There's_ an idea," Saitou muttered, but Shiori didn't hear him.

"What'll it be today Tokio-san?" Shiori asked, pausing on her way to the back to check on Saitou's food.

"Something cheap and quick," Tokio replied, yawning. "Soba."

Shiori looked horrified; Saitou grinned wolfishly.

"Heh—took me eight years, but I finally got you to order soba for lunch," he said with a smirk.

"Oh be quiet," Tokio muttered, wishing she hadn't forgotten he was there.

"Shiori-san, you owe me twenty-five hundred yen," Saitou said. "Told you I could do it before we hit the ten year mark."

Shiori glanced at Tokio, whose face was scrunched up in thought, then decided to get away before the woman figured out what they were talking about.

"What's wrong with you?" Saitou asked idly once Shiori had disappeared.

"Huh?" Tokio looked up at him, blinking.

"Why're you so tired?"

"Oh." She made a face. "Stupid exhibit at the museum. I had to stay late last night because one of the display cases fell over and shattered and the boss and the head curator almost had coronaries."

Saitou's lips twitched.

"The case just fell over?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

Tokio rolled her eyes. "The assistants _insist_ that they were nowhere near the display when it fell over." Her tone of voice plainly told him that she wasn't buying that line for a second, and he smirked.

"Sounds like you might have ghosts then, Chiisai."

Tokio twitched visibly.

"I hate it when you call me that," she said from between gritted teeth.

"I know." The smirk got wider.

"Ahou."

"That's my line."

"Not while you're calling me Chiisai." she shot back, and he decided to concede defeat.

This time.

"So now what?" he asked, his fingers tapping on the countertop again.

"So now we have to wait for a new display case." Tokio replied, digging through her purse for her wallet. She took hold of her glasses case, didn't hear anything shift inside it, paused, and then looked up at him. "Are my glasses on top of my head?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Good—I thought I'd lost them for a second." She reached up and took them off her head and set them on the countertop by his elbow. "Anyway, it's going to take a few days for a new case to get here. And we have to do some touch up work on the artifact—there was some minor damage." She pulled out her glasses case, set the glasses in the case carefully and snapped it shut. "Stupid assistants. I should fire them."

"You should shoot them," he corrected.

"I don't have a gun," she pointed out.

"All right, _I'll_ shoot them," he said agreeably, and she smiled.

"Hm. As tempting as the offer is, I couldn't possibly ask that of you. At least not before I've found replacement assistants."

He shrugged. "I can wait."

This was the usual routine at the luncheonette. Saitou would come in for his soba, and roughly five minutes later, Tokio would breeze in and they'd settle into companionable bickering while they waited for their food. Saitou usually waited for her order to come out before leaving with his own; she usually ate in the luncheonette. They had about ten to fifteen minutes to play with on average, and as the years had passed, they'd learned to use it to its fullest potential.

Tokio didn't remember exactly how the routine had become, well, the routine. She had a suspicion it had started with him calling her "Chiisai" the first time he saw her, and her reaction to the name. What she did know was that for the last eight years, she had been coming to this luncheonette on her lunch hour and meeting Saitou and exchanging quips. It was surprisingly pleasant. Well, when he wasn't calling her "Chiisai," anyway.

"What's the new exhibit?" he asked.

"I told you already," she replied, vague annoyance coloring her tone. "A week ago."

"I have more important things to remember than what exhibit is opening at the museum you work at…_Chiisai_."

"_So_ obnoxious," she growled, resisting the urge to kick him; technically, if she kicked him, she'd be assaulting an officer, and knowing Saitou as she did, he'd take real delight in reading her her rights. He was special that way, Saitou was.

"I love you too, Chiisai."

"Stop calling me that!" Tokio snapped, then looked around at the other patrons apologetically, her embarrassment at raising her voice written on her face; Saitou coughed in a miserable attempt at covering up his laughter at her expense.

"Well?" he asked after he'd stopped laughing at her, though he was still smirking. "You didn't answer my question. Or were you planning on being rude?"

"You're one to talk about being rude, Saitou-san," Tokio irritably said, pulling her wallet out of her purse.

"Do as I say, not as I do," he quipped.

Her nostrils flared and she glared at him. He raised an eyebrow and met her glare head on, and they indulged in the ever-mature glaring match for several long minutes.

"It's early Meiji Era," she said finally, unable to hold the glare any longer. "How do you do that?" she added, her voice equal parts annoyance and wonderment.

"I'm talented," he said.

"I bet." she muttered.

He sent her another wolfish grin.

"Was that supposed to sound dirty, Chiisai?" he asked innocently, knowing that the absolute fastest way to get her sputtering was to embarrass her horrifically.

Predictably, her cheeks went the nicest shade of pink, and she refused to look up at him, instead suddenly finding the contents of her wallet—which he knew was mostly old receipts and business cards and the odd yen here and there because she'd told him so once—absolutely fascinating.

"You're awful," she said, almost choking on her words.

"Hm—really?" he prodded, purposely dropping his voice a few octaves.

"Shiori-san!" Tokio yelped. "Is my order ready yet?!?"

"Just a second!" Shiori called back from the back, and Tokio groaned loud enough for Saitou to hear.

"So eager to leave my company, Tokio?" he asked, voice still suggestive.

"Saitou-san, _please_ stop," she begged, blushing in earnest now. "You know I hate it when you do that."

"But it's _so_ entertaining," he replied, not only not changing his tone, but leaning over her.

"This is _so_ inappropriate," she moaned, eyes glued to the countertop and cheeks a rather interesting shade of red.

Saitou didn't get the chance to reply: Shiori appeared from the back with a bag in one hand and a steaming bowl in the other. She took one look at Saitou and Tokio—the former leaning over the latter and looking extremely amused and pleased with himself, and the latter, cheeks flaming, staring at her as if she were nothing less than ultimate salvation—and knew exactly what had happened.

"Knock it off, Saitou-san," she chided, striding over to them, "leave poor Tokio-san alone." She set the bag down in front of him and the bowl in front of her. "Here're your orders."

Saitou finally moved away and Tokio sighed in relief.

"Thank you Shiori-san," she murmured fervently.

"You're welcome, but you should learn how to handle him."

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"'Handle' me?" He smirked at Tokio, who immediately clapped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes and loudly said,

"I'm not listening! I can't hear you!"

Shiori rolled her eyes and looked over at Saitou. "Saitou-san?"

He gave a little half-nod of acknowledgment, then pulled out his wallet and paid for his meal. Tokio, in the mean time, had uncovered her ears and opened both eyes after peeking to make sure his attention was occupied with something else. She counted out her yen and also paid Shiori, then shut her wallet with a snap and plopped it back into her purse.

"Shut that," Saitou said idly, putting his policeman's hat on. "You're inviting pickpockets."

"Are there any pickpockets here now?" she asked patiently, plucking a pair of chopsticks from the container closest to her and breaking them apart deftly, then handing them to him; he never could get as clean a break as she could.

"You're going to forget," he said. "Shut it."

She sighed and rolled her eyes, then zipped her purse shut and turned back to him.

"Happy, Assistant Inspector Saitou?" she asked, voice slightly sarcastic.

"Deliriously, Associate Director Takagi," he dryly replied. He picked up his bag, opened it and dropped the chopsticks in, then folded it shut and picked it up. "Let me know when you want your idiot assistants taken care of."

"Right," she said, smiling ruefully.

Saitou leaned down and Tokio stiffened, surprised.

"Before I go, I'm curious," he said, voice dropping again. "Interested in learning how to handle me?"

"Saitou-san!" Shiori barked. "Behave!"

He smirked at Tokio, then straightened and left the luncheonette without a backwards glance. Tokio watched him go, cheeks still flushed, then turned back to the counter and grabbed another pair of chopsticks, hands shaking a little.

Saitou was only two years older than her, but he made her feel horribly young when he did stuff like that. What made it more embarrassing was that he knew it made her uncomfortable.

"You're hopeless," Shiori said with a sigh, coming to where Tokio was.

"Not you too," Tokio said, also with a sigh.

"If you'd learn how to not get all flustered when he said things like that," Shiori began.

"I wouldn't mind so much if he didn't look like he was enjoying it," Tokio interrupted grumpily, snapping her chopsticks apart, and for the first time in eight years, the break wasn't clean and she snapped one of them almost in half. She threw the chopsticks down on the counter in frustration while Shiori tried not to laugh and failed spectacularly.

"I wish he'd get married or something," she muttered. "Then maybe he'd stop doing that."

"No way," Shiori said with a laugh. "He enjoys it too much. Saitou-san's twisted like that."

"Yeah I know," Tokio returned gloomily, picking out another set of chopsticks and breaking them apart; the break was clean this time.

Shiori had stopped trying to convince Tokio to respond to Saitou's teasing in kind, and she'd only said something about her two favorite customers getting together once—Tokio hadn't taken the suggestion well, and Shiori had wisely refrained from bringing it up again. She thought, however, that it was fairly obvious to even the dimmest human being around that there was something there. Saitou had never received anything in the way of encouragement from Tokio, though, so all he could really do was tease her mercilessly. Shiori thought it was sweet…in a demented sort of way.

As for Tokio, Shiori was reasonably sure that the younger woman was smitten with the tall police inspector; it was more than a little telling that Tokio always snapped his chopsticks apart for him before he left. Just as it was more than a little telling that Saitou always waited for Tokio's food to come out before taking his leave. And if those were too subtle, the whole "Chiisai" thing made it blindingly obvious.

_How to end the stalemate?_ Shiori mused, watching Tokio eat the soba.

"You know there won't be any living with him now, right?" Shiori asked. "He's been trying to get you to eat soba since he met you."

"Actually, I like soba," Tokio admitted. Then she looked up at Shiori and grinned mischievously, eyes twinkling. "I just kept refusing to order it because he kept trying to get me to order it."

Shiori blinked.

"Gods, you're as bad as him!"

Tokio smiled and shrugged and went back to her soba, and Shiori shook her head. A light suddenly went off in said head, and Shiori paused, then looked over at Tokio, who hadn't noticed the rather Grinch-like grin spreading over Shiori's face.

"Say, Tokio-san," she began casually, "that new exhibit at the museum—"

"Early Meiji Era," Tokio automatically offered.

"Right, that one…any weapons on display?"

"We've got a huge room dedicated to it," Tokio affirmed, then sent Shiori an odd look. "Since when are you interested in weapons, Shiori-san?"

"Not for me," Shiori replied, vaguely annoyed. "I was thinking maybe you should tell Saitou-san about it. He's into weapons."

"He prefers katana," Tokio said authoritatively.

"Aren't there any?"

Tokio shrugged. "Not enough that I think he'd be interested in seeing them."

"Tell him anyway," Shiori urged. "You never know, he might be interested."

"Doubtful," Tokio said, frowning thoughtfully.

Shiori rolled her eyes; damn it, _why_ did Tokio have to be so annoyingly stubborn? If Shiori kept insisting like this, the younger woman would get suspicious, and Tokio herself had just admitted to refusing to order soba after Saitou had tried to get her to for eight years, just to be contrary. Likely as not, any more insistence from Shiori would end in the same result.

Tokio finished her meal, said good-bye and left. Shiori leaned against the counter and watched her go.

"If it was up to her and that idiot, they'd spend another eight years pussy-footing around each other," she muttered. "Never knew Saitou-san was such a wimp, either—you'd have thought he would have asked her out by now."

From the back, Kuno, her cook, yelled for her to take out an order, and Shiori sighed, grabbed Tokio's bowl and went to the back.

"They are _so_ hopeless," she said wearily, shaking her head.

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_Preview of Chapter 2: She's A Ball-Buster:_

"Saitou-san?" she asked incredulously, abruptly stopping a few feet away when she recognized him.

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"Sure can run in those heels, though," Shinomori Aoshi observed.

"Yup," the other three men said in unison.

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"Jesus," Okita muttered, holding a hand over his heart. "I hate it when she does that."

---

"Christ, a second slower and she'd a killed me," Enishi muttered, breathing a sigh of relief.


	2. She's A Ball Buster

**A/N:** Heh—you guys are awesome. Your response was very flattering and encouraging, which makes me even happier about indulging in my little experiment in insanity. Unfortunately, there is little fluffiness (demented or otherwise) between our favorite chain-smoking Wolf and the object of his deranged affection this time around, but that'll change by possibly the next chapter. This one is mostly to get the ball rolling and introduce the supporting cast. Bear with me.

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Disclaimer: Like I need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

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Words To Watch Out For: 

Superintendent General: more of a note of explanation than anything; in the Tokyo PD, the head honcho is called the "Superintendent General" rather than the "Chief" (or whatever it is us Americans call the head honcho of the PD); this is also, coincidentally, the highest rank within the Tokyo PD

Impact-resistant glass: also more of a note of explanation than anything; we use this down here in South Flori-duh—hurricane-prone as we are—to reduce property damage (and it does, by the way; this stuff is _really_ cool). I don't actually know for a fact that museums use this glass, but let's suspend reality and pretend, okay?

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

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_**Chapter Two: She's A Ball-Buster**_

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A week later, Tokio was slightly less sleep deprived, but by no means feeling less stressed out. She was wound so tight, in fact, that Saitou had been kind enough to refrain from the quasi-sexual harassment. Not from calling her "Chiisai," of course—that was asking too much—but he wasn't mortifying her…horribly.

It was _one_ good thing, anyway.

Today found her coming into work a little earlier than usual. They'd be opening the early Meiji Era exhibit in two days, and it was crunch time now, with everyone scrambling around trying to get the last details and finishing touches up and ready for the big day.

Tokio usually took over the nitty-gritty so her boss and the museum's director, Kiyosato Akira, didn't have to worry about anything but the publicity. As a result of this generosity, Tokio often got stuck dealing with the more frustrating administrative minutiae inherent to putting an exhibit together.

She was also often stuck working rather more closely with her boss's brother-in-law than she would have liked.

But Akira paid her very well for her trouble, so she didn't complain.

Much.

She walked up the steps to the museum, pulled out her key card and swiped it through; this early in the day, before the museum was technically open, it was only possible to get in with an employee key card.

The doors whooshed open, and Tokio walked in, tucking her key card away in her wallet. She went straight to her office, got her computer started up and listened to her messages, then picked up her various lists for the various displays and decided, since no one was there yet, that she'd take the opportunity to go through everything without having to worry about idiot assistants, heart attack-prone bosses and annoying coworkers.

So she left her office, glasses perched on top of her head and her i.d. card clipped onto her jacket lapel so she wouldn't be held up by overzealous security guards, and walked toward the section of the museum that had been curtained off from the public for the last five months while the exhibit had been going up. She jogged daintily up the stairs, got past the thick curtains with a little difficulty—heels, even fairly low ones, were not the ideal sort of footwear for travailing through a still under construction area—but managed to keep her clothes from getting dusty.

She felt her hair to both make sure it was still all right and to make sure she still had her glasses, nodded, then turned…and nearly had a seizure.

Every single display had been smashed to pieces, knocked over and otherwise demolished. She saw a few pieces were literally _in_ pieces now, and the trail of destruction led into the next room; given the condition of this room, she thought it was pretty safe to say that the next room probably didn't look much different. All the spot lighting had been destroyed—the only light available was coming from the emergency lights fed by the generators—and the security cameras had been smashed—some with so much force they'd been ripped out of the wall and were dangling by wires.

She stood there, staring at the damage in absolute silence. She'd dropped all her various lists, and they were currently littered around her feet, but she didn't really notice that. In fact, she didn't notice anything over the roaring in her ears and the bile rising in her throat.

_We're dead_, she thought, shutting her eyes.

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The first thing Tokio did was wail.

The second thing she did was curse.

The third thing she did was yell for a security guard.

The fourth thing she did was curse some more when the security guard came running and took one look at the damage and asked,

"Whoa…what happened Takagi-san?"

Looked like today was getting off to a _wonderful_ start.

She was very displeased to learn that someone had tampered with the security system in the exhibit rooms, and in the exhibit rooms only; when she talked to the head of security, an older gentleman of medium height with a slight paunch and no hair named Takeda, he was deeply embarrassed to inform her that there was no film from the cameras in those rooms at all after ten o'clock.

Miraculously, Tokio managed not to scream. But it was a very near thing. Instead, she calmly asked Takeda to go through each and every tape for each and every camera in each and every room very meticulously, on the off chance that one of them had picked up something. Then, she called the police and gloomily waited for Akira.

Akira was horrified when he arrived at the museum twenty minutes after Tokio and was informed that the new exhibit had been literally ripped to pieces. He was so horrified he started gasping for breath and clutching at his chest, and Tokio had to hurry him into his office and force him into his seat and then force him to calm down and breath normally. She then called Akira's wife, also the museum's head of public relations, and told her it was urgent that she present herself at the museum—like _now_.

Currently, Tokio was standing over Akira as he sat behind his desk, head in his hands and moaning over the amount of money that had been spent on publicizing this event, on the amount they'd paid for security to keep everything safe—and oh gods, the _time_, the _hours_ and _hours_ of _work_ that had been put into making this exhibit a success!

"Boss," Tokio soothed, rubbing his back, "you really need to calm down. You'll raise your blood pressure, and Tomoe-san told me that your doctor's been worried about all the stress you—"

"This will ruin us!" Akira loudly wailed. "All that effort!—all that money!—all wasted! How could this have happened! How!"

Tokio sighed and sent her boss a sympathetic look. Poor guy; he really didn't deserve this mess. Then again, neither did she.

"Don't worry Boss, I called the police just before you got here. They should be getting here shortly. I explained the situation to the Superintendent General himself, and he sent his best men out to fix this for you."

"Tokio," Akira said, voice anguished, as he raised his head to look up at her, "this is going to cost a fortune to fix."

She met his gaze, her stomach seeming to drop down into her heels. She patted his shoulder.

"Akira-kun, I promise, we'll fix this," she murmured. "Don't worry, okay? You let me and Enishi worry—it's what you pay us to do."

Akira nodded, miserable, and Tokio wished there was more she could do for the man. She didn't have the chance to try to think up anything, though, since someone knocked on the door of Akira's office.

"Come in," Akira said dully, his head going back into his hands.

A still shame-faced Takeda poked his head in.

"Kiyosato-san? Takagi-san? I'm sorry to interrupt, but the police are here, and they need to talk to you—"

"They'll talk to me," Tokio interrupted, striding toward the door. She looked over her shoulder at Akira, who hadn't moved, then looked back to Takeda. "Stay with the boss until Tomoe-san gets here—he needs the company badly," she murmured, and Takeda nodded.

"Yes ma'am."

Tokio nodded as well, then strode out into the hall and out of the office area to greet the police, who were waiting in the lobby.

There were four of them: one was short with red hair; the other two were tall with dark hair; and the fourth was—

"Saitou-san?" she asked incredulously, abruptly stopping a few feet away when she recognized him.

He glanced over in her direction at the sound of his name, looking bored, but he quickly looked as incredulous as she did when he caught sight of her.

A sort of stunned silence settled over everyone for a long moment, until movement beyond the officers caught Tokio's eye, and she saw Tomoe running up the steps.

"Finally!" she said, dashing past the officers to the doors to deactivate the key card access just as Tomoe got to them.

"Where is he?" Tomoe asked, breathless, after getting in.

"Office," Tokio replied, reactivating the key card access. "I think you should probably take him home, Tomoe-san."

"Take him home?" Tomoe asked, staring at her in disbelief. "You can't be serious!"

"I'm dead serious," Tokio replied. "Look, I'll handle everything, okay? He can't be all stressed out like this, it's bad for him—that's what you told me when I took the job, right? I'm supposed to shoulder some of the burden, right? Well, he needs me to take most of it off him right now. Best advice would be to take him home and let me and Enishi deal with this."

"He'll never agree to that," Tomoe said, dubious.

"Well, that's why I wanted you here," Tokio said, walking back over to where the officers were standing, watching her. "Convince him it's a good idea—I have absolute faith in you."

Tomoe sighed, then quickly walked off into the direction Tokio had come from only a few moments before, leaving Tokio alone with the four officers again.

"Sorry about that," she said. "And you're late." she added, frowning at Saitou in particular.

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"Really?" he drawled.

"Yes, really," she replied, voice no nonsense. "I called over half an hour ago."

"I had to wait for everyone," Saitou replied, shooting one of the dark haired men a speaking look. The man in question put on an innocent, "Are-you-referring-to-harmless-little-me?" face and pointed at himself.

"Yes _you_, Okita," Saitou said irritably.

Tokio looked from Saitou to Okita.

"Should I be worried?" she asked.

"He's being an idiot, don't pay attention to him," Saitou said. "So why are we here? The Superintendent General said you'd been robbed."

"Maybe," Tokio replied, motioning for them to follow her toward the curtained off area. "I didn't look around to see if anything was missing."

"You found it?" the other dark-haired man asked.

"Yes, I was the first to arrive," she said. "Mind the curtain, please—there's a lot of glass all over the floor, and you'll cut yourself if you trip and fall."

The damage was impressive: Okita whistled lowly.

"Damn," he drawled.

"No kidding," the other dark-haired man remarked. "Someone had fun in here."

"At my expense," Tokio said tightly.

"What are these papers?" the red haired man asked, looking down.

Everyone followed his gaze, and Tokio sighed.

"Those are mine," she said. "I dropped them earlier when I found this."

"What are they?" Saitou asked.

"The inventory. The plan was to take advantage of the fact that I wouldn't be interrupted by anyone to look over things and make sure all the pieces were where they should be, make sure everything was all right."

"We'll need a copy?" the red haired man inquired, looking up at Saitou, who nodded, then looked up from the floor and slowly began walking forward, looking around thoughtfully.

"All the stands are knocked over," he remarked. "Why would they knock the stands over if all they had to do was break the glass?"

"It's impact-resistant glass," Tokio volunteered, picking her way through the glass towards him with the other officers scrambling after her to make sure she didn't fall. She made it over to one stand without incident and crouched down by it, and the men crowded around her.

She pointed to the case, which, despite being covered in a spider's-web of cracks was still mostly intact except for a rather large hole through the middle of it.

"There's an inner layer that keeps the glass from shattering even if it's cracked somehow. We started using it a couple years back because the old glass display cases were so fragile they posed a threat to the artifacts they were supposed to be protecting," she explained. "But it's expensive for a small museum like us to replace all the glass ones with the impact-resistant glass in one fell swoop, so we've been doing it a little at a time. Some of these are the old glass cases, others are the impact-resistant."

"They couldn't tell which was which," the other dark-haired men concluded.

"Or perhaps," Tokio said as she eyed the hole in the display case, "they couldn't remember."

The men raised their eyebrows.

"You know who did it?" Saitou asked.

"I have suspicions only," Tokio corrected. "I can't be sure until Enishi comes and I can get ahold of the employee records."

Her cell phone went off at that particular moment, and Tokio pulled it out and answered it curtly:

"What?"

"Why haven't you deactivated the damn key card!" a man shouted from the other end.

"Do I work in security Yukishiro?" Tokio snapped. "Swipe your card for christssake!"

"I haven't got my card or I wouldn't be calling you, now would I?"

"_What_ are you good for?" Tokio demanded, exasperated. "Gods above, Enishi, really, this is starting to really tick me off!"

"Just let me in, damn it!"

"Don't order me around, Yukishiro," Tokio warned, already picking her way back towards the curtain, the men trailing after her to make sure she didn't fall, "or I'll leave you outside until the museum opens to the general public."

"You wouldn't dare," Enishi replied, voice poisonous.

"Don't tempt me," Tokio shot back. "I'll be there in a second."

She ended the call and looked back over at the officers.

"I'll be back in a few minutes, probably accompanied by Enishi when he hears what happened."

"He doesn't know?" the red haired man asked.

"I doubt it, or he'd have come with Tomoe-san. Just sit tight, and when I come back you can ask me whatever questions you want."

And then she disappeared through the curtain, leaving the four men standing there.

"She's…a real ball-buster," Okita decided, rubbing his chin.

"They've just been robbed," Himura Kenshin pointed out. "It's natural she'd be upset and harried."

There was a pause.

"Sure can run in those heels, though," Shinomori Aoshi observed.

"Yup," the other three men said in unison.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio strode to the door, deactivated the key card access and the doors whooshed open, at which point Yukishiro Enishi stalked through them, his dark glasses perched on the end of his nose and his gaze extremely unfriendly.

"Why are there police cars outside?" he asked tightly.

"Oh this, you have to see," she replied, reactivating the key card access. "Come on."

She led him to the curtained off area.

"Holy shit!" Enishi exploded when he saw the mess. "What the—! Tokio!"

"It was like that when I got here," Tokio said.

"Jesus Christ this is—" His hand was in his hair, and he'd grabbed a fistful of it. Because his glasses were still on the end of his nose, his horrified gaze was plain to everyone. "Oh holy hells, tell me this is a nightmare!"

"I wish," Tokio replied darkly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Enishi groaned and closed his eyes.

"_Son of a bitch_," he said. "I can't believe this is happening. After all the work we put into this, all the money we poured into it—" He opened his eyes, looked at the damage and groaned again. "Oh gods, I think I'm having a heart attack."

"Oi!" Tokio grabbed him by the tie and jerked. "You're not leaving me to deal with this all by myself! Have a heart attack after this is over."

"Tell me this was the only room, Tokio," Enishi begged, sending her a pleading look as he grabbed hold of her upper arms. "Please, _please_ tell me this was the only room…."

Tokio looked over at the four officers. And read the expressions on their faces quite clearly: "You're shit out of luck."

"Would you like the bad news or the bad news first?" she asked, looking back up at Enishi, and Enishi groaned again and closed his eyes and leaned his head against her shoulder.

"This isn't happening, this isn't happening," he murmured fervently, softly banging his forehead against her shoulder.

"That hurts," Tokio said mildly. When he didn't stop, she yanked hard on the tie she was still holding and choked him.

"What the hell was that for!" he rasped, clutching his throat.

"Pissing and moaning about this isn't going to make it better," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "We need to hurry up and find out if there's anything missing."

Enishi's eyes widened.

"You don't know yet?" he demanded, incredulous.

"I didn't want to touch anything until the police had had a look," she said. "They just now started."

"Christ," Enishi snarled, grabbing another fistful of his hair. His face went grim as a sudden thought occurred: "Did Akira see this?"

Tokio sent him a horrified look.

"Are you _insane_?" she demanded. "He'd have had a heart attack and died! I couldn't let him see this!"

"What about Sis?"

"Her either. I told her she should take Akira-kun home."

"It'll be easier to get this done quick if he's not around," Enishi agreed, gaining his bearings finally. "I'll see if I can help."

"Good, maybe that'll speed things up. I'm going to need all curators and the assistants, Enishi. Pull everyone, and get everyone a list of the inventory—copies for the officers too."

"Right, right," he said, absently fixing his tie. His eyes fell again on the damage and he sighed wearily. "Shit…and we were opening it in two days."

"We'll think about that later," Tokio said firmly. "Once Tomoe-san has Akira-kun home and fine, tell her we need her back here—she needs to handle damage control. We have to keep this to ourselves for a little bit, just until we know what happened."

"I know, I know, don't nag me," Enishi said irritably, and Tokio shoved his shoulder.

"Get out of here and be useful," she snapped.

"Oh shut up," Enishi muttered. "Shrew."

"Mental deficient," she taunted.

"Go to hell," Enishi snarled, and Tokio gestured to the room around her.

"I'm there, thanks," she said dryly. She remembered something and sobered. "Enishi?"

"What?" he asked, catching the serious note in her voice.

"We're going to need the employee files."

Enishi's face hardened.

"You think it was one of our people?"

"No forced entry," she pointed out. "And the key card access lets in anyone with a card."

"And only employees have cards," Enishi finished. "If one of those bastards did this I'll—"

"Press charges like a good boy," Tokio interrupted, motioning with her head to the officers behind her who were listening.

Enishi rolled his eyes and snorted.

"'Good boy'," he muttered with a sneer.

"Hm, you're right—rather far-fetched." Tokio replied thoughtfully.

"Hag!"

"Mama's Boy!"

Enishi departed after a few more insults were exchanged, and then Tokio sighed and turned around and faced the officers. She found them staring at her in amazement.

"What?" she asked, more curious than defensive.

"That was the most infantile display I've ever seen in my life," Saitou said. "Are you an adult or a child of three?"

"Assistant Inspector Saitou," Tokio said dryly, and the other three men raised their eyebrows and looked over at Saitou; hey that's right, these two knew each other already. "Shouldn't you be, oh, I don't know…inspecting?"

"Associate Director Takagi," Saitou returned, just as dryly, and the other three men's eyebrow's climbed higher and theylooked back to her. "Shouldn't you be, oh, I don't know…getting the hell out of my way?"

"You're crazy if you think I'm going to leave you guys alone with all this stuff," she said. "No offense or anything, but until I find out what's missing, I'm not leaving."

"And you're crazier if you think I'll let you stay," Saitou replied, just as blunt as she'd been. "You'll get in our way."

"Museum policy says either the director or the associate director must be present at all times during a crisis—this, my _dear_ Inspector, is a crisis. So since Akira-kun's going home and I'm not, I'm staying." She lifted her chin and sent him a cool look. "And if you think you can scare me out of here, you're dead wrong."

The other three men exchanged amused glances; this assignment was starting to get good….

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It turned out that Saitou didn't have a choice in the matter: when push came to shove, he had to acquiesce to the museum's _modus operandi_ whether he liked it or not—and he _didn't_ like it.

He didn't like it a lot.

And Tokio, as far as he could tell, didn't give a flying damn.

To be fair, however, she was doing an exemplary job of keeping the museum staff out of the way of his investigation, and she was being pretty gracious and accommodating, all things considered; she'd kept out of their way when they'd interviewed the security guards and she'd kept the curators and assistants from touching the crime scene (scenes) while they'd been occupied. She was keeping a sharp eye on the curators and all the assistants, making sure they were only cleaning up spots where pictures and other evidence had already been meticulously collected. And she was a little pit bull about it, too; he'd never realized she had it in her to be abrupt and mean. She'd always seemed so sweet and nice at the luncheonette. Well, like they said—it's the quiet ones you gotta watch….

Currently, she was crouched down among the remains of a display case in the transportation portion of the exhibit, her jacket long discarded, her glasses perched on the end of her nose and her hair clipped up. She'd rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and snapped on a pair of gloves, and she was going through the wreckage with Kenshin and Aoshi; he and Okita were making the rounds of the room.

"Oh hell," he heard Tokio mutter a little loudly.

"What now?" he asked.

"That animal or whoever ruined this display," she said with a sigh. "This piece is going to have to be completely restored. If I can find the rest of it, that is."

"What is it?" Saitou asked, he and Okita walking over to where she was.

"Bicycle," Aoshi said. "There's a wheel missing."

Tokio looked around, squinting, then pointed to a far corner.

"I think that might be it over there. Could you please check Himura-san?"

Kenshin nodded and rose to do her biding, and everyone watched him, waiting.

"Is that the wheel?" Tokio asked, rising and absently dusting off her hands.

"It's _a_ wheel," Kenshin replied. "Can't really tell of what, it's too dark. It looks too big to be a bicycle wheel, though, Tokio-dono."

Tokio sighed irritably.

"I'm almost certain I asked the assistants to bring flashlights at some point," she muttered, picking through the wreckage to the corner where Kenshin was crouched down. She leaned over and examined the wheel.

"Is that it?" Aoshi asked.

"Yes, not that that'll do me any good, because it's been bent all to hell," Tokio replied, straightening. She walked over to the doorway of the other room they'd left half an hour ago.

"_Where are the bloody flashlights_?" she shouted, making the four men jump.

"Jesus," Okita muttered, holding a hand over his heart. "I hate it when she does that."

"Wouldn't be so bad if she didn't have such a pair of lungs on her," Aoshi commented, rubbing the side of his neck with his forearm; the gloves on his hands were likely stuck with shards of glass and he didn't relish slicing his neck open.

"Or such a big mouth," Saitou said under his breath.

Kenshin walked back over, stretching the kinks out of his back.

"How long have we been doing this?" he asked.

"I think we're at hour three." Aoshi said wearily. "And we've only gone through two rooms. And there's maybe eight more."

Okita groaned and Kenshin frowned.

"Quit bitching," Saitou ordered. "It's disgraceful."

"At this rate we're never gonna finish," Okita replied. "Eight more rooms of this same shit? Come on. And we've yet to find anything missing. I'm starting to think one of the employees got tired of having your lady friend over there yell at him and decided to bust up the displays just to be an asshole."

Saitou sent Okita a withering look that would have been more effective if the room hadn't been so dim.

"You can leave if you want," Saitou offered, voice mild.

Okita snorted, but lost some of his irritation.

"I'm not totally stupid, Saitou-san."

"So you say," Saitou replied.

Tokio came back armed with flashlights and gave each of them one and took one for herself.

"_Much_ better," Kenshin immediately said upon turning his on and using it to look around.

"Finally, something goes our way," Okita agreed. "We may yet finish before the end of the day."

"You will," Tokio assured him. "Now that we can actually see what's here, this'll go faster." Her cell phone went off, and she handed Aoshi her flashlight while she answered it.

"What is it?" she asked, though her tone was more professional than annoyed. "Oh good. Is the boss okay? You're sure? Good. We're on the second room now. The assistants are picking up the first room—uh-huh. Whoa—you want me to what?" Tokio's change in tone made the four men stop what they were doing and look over at her. "Tomoe-san you can't be serious! I can't do that! W—I have glass in my hair, for starters! No way, have Enishi do it. I know I'm the associate director! Tomoe-san! The boss would kill me if I addressed the press like this! You're PR, isn't this your department anyway? So you do it. No look, I'm busy with the displays—yes I know someone has to talk to the reporters—what? …WHAT?"

She grabbed Aoshi's wrist and turned it so she could shine the flashlight he held on her right wrist, where she wore her wristwatch.

"That's less than five minutes from now! Tomoe-san! Wait, no—hello? Hello! Oh son of a—damn it!" she wailed, ripping the cell phone from her ear.

"Press conference?" Aoshi asked.

"Yes—I can't believe she did that to me!" Tokio fumed, shoving her cell phone into her pocket and ripping her gloves off. "She threw me to the lions without so much as an eyelash bat! Damn it!" She groaned as she tossed the gloves aside. "Christ, I don't even know what to say. I can't say we _don't_ know anything but I can't say we _do_ know anything either. I'll have to say nothing and something all at once. Crap, I wish I'd paid attention in public speaking."

"Or was a natural bullshit artist," Kenshin idly volunteered.

"Wait a minute," Saitou said, "what about the rooms? You were the one harping about how we couldn't do anything without you breathing down our necks. We're supposed to stand around and twiddle our thumbs while you go placate the masses?"

"No, Enishi'll take over, just pretend he's another associate director," Tokio replied, hastily shaking out her slacks. "Wait a second, I'll get him—what did I do with my jacket?"

"I think you gave it to one of the assistants," Okita said.

"Oh gods, let them not have lost the freakin' thing," Tokio muttered, striding out of the room.

"So," Kenshin said slowly, "we wait now?"

"Not like we have a choice," Aoshi replied, flicking his flashlight off. "She'll massacre us if we touch anything without someone here to watch."

"I hate this shit," Saitou muttered. "We'd finish quicker if we didn't have to tiptoe around here like this."

"Patience Grasshopper," Okita replied, channeling Bruce Lee as he was wont to do when Saitou was in an especially unfriendly mood. "Things could be worse—she could have forced us to leave the scene entirely while she was gone and not pick up work until she came back."

"Don't 'Grasshopper' me," Saitou growled. "I'm not in the mood for it."

"Duh—that's why I do it."

Before Saitou could possibly deck his best friend, Tokio and Enishi came back.

"Get on a pair of gloves and grab a copy of the inventory and keep working with the officers," Tokio ordered, literally shoving Enishi towards where the officers were standing.

"Tokio I can't do this," Enishi protested. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing!"

"It's just for a few minutes," Tokio snapped, annoyed. "Tomoe-san shoved a press conference on me last minute, and I don't want the officers to have to stop their investigation. We have to finish today, and we can't if we keep interrupting them, so stop being such a miserable baby and put on the damn gloves!"

"I'll do the damn press conference!" Enishi bellowed back.

Tokio then did something none of the four officers was expecting: she kicked Enishi between the legs. Or rather, almost did—he jumped out of the way just in time to save himself from a world of hurt.

"Put on the damn gloves!" she bellowed. "Or I'll turn you into a eunuch!"

And with that, she strode from the room, jerkily getting into her jacket as she went.

"Christ, a second slower and she'd a killed me," Enishi muttered, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Is she always like that?" Saitou asked after a stunned pause; holy crap…he'd been exchanging quips with a woman suffering from split personalities for eight years. And she'd seemed so _normal_….

"Tokio doesn't do stress real good, though this is the first time I've ever seen her freak out like this," Enishi said, grabbing a pair of gloves from Aoshi.

"Yeah, that's definitely freaking out," Okita murmured, and Kenshin nodded, amethyst eyes wide.

"Usually, she just yells a lot, or we insult each other, and every once in a while, we'll spar a little to blow off steam—her old man put her in karate when she was little, and she hits harder than a lot of guys I've fought." Enishi continued, snapping on the latex gloves, an expression of distaste on his face.

Another pause, and then Okita said,

"I was right: total ball-buster."

"Yup." was the uneven chorus from his fellow officers.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 3: You Hit Like A Girl:_

"What the hell is going on?" she demanded.

"Oh, just your associate trying to kill Himura," Okita answered, rather calmly, all things considered.

---

"Seems like just your type."

"I'll hurt you."

"I'm just saying."

---

"Himura-san," Tokio said kindly, "…shut up and eat your food."

---

"What'd you do, kill the old acting instructor?" Okita asked, kidding.

"Not quite," Aoshi deadpanned, and Okita stared at him for a moment in silence, face a mixture of caution and disbelief, then took a cautious step back.

* * *

**Additional A/N:** Enishi won't be quite so…_unhinged_…as he was in the manga, seeing as how Tomoe is still alive and kicking, but he will still be taking issue with the presence of our favorite Rurouni. All things in due time. 


	3. You Hit Like A Girl

**MY SEMESTER HAS OFFICIALLY ENDED AS OF TODAY AND I'M FEELING CELEBRATORY AND GENEROUS—AND ALSO POSSIBLY VAGUELY TIPSY. **So I'm updating early. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to have a few beers more and continue my celebration in a slightly less coherent fashion. Cheers.

**A/N:** Historically, since Tokio came from a samurai family, she knew how to defend herself to some degree. And that odd statement is me trying to avoid complaints (assuming someone is reading this, you'll see why in like a minute or so). Also, I'm fairly positive I was channeling the Three Stooges when I wrote parts of this chapter (guess who my Stooges are). When I realized that, I went back, read it, and decided it fit the general tone I'm setting for this fic, so in it stays. So I give you the debut of the Japanese Stooges—more cerebral; just as ridiculous. Please treat my poor idiot children kindly.

**P.S.:** For ExternalDarkness, who goes off to the world of higher education. Good luck!

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

tonfa: anyone who's read the manga; taken martial arts to a reasonably advanced level; or done some research in their spare time will know this one; for those who've done none of the preceding, this is for you. Tonfa are "in effect a two-handed weapon (because one is held in each hand); traditional tonfa—that is, without ball-bearings or other mechanisms in the handle that allow increased rotation—were a favored weapon among Japanese police of the time Meiji, as an officer was said to be able, with relatively little training, to defend himself against unarmed or even (with more training) sword-wielding opponents." (_Rurouni Kenshin_, Volume 11) They look like policemen's nightsticks, basically (hint hint).

police officers: more a note of explanation than anything; in Japan, officers are prohibited from smoking or eating in public while in uniform. If they want to engage in these activities, they have to go to a _koban_ (police box) or a secluded area of the neighborhood. I have no idea why, so don't ask. But maybe one of you can tell me…?

MPD: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (okay…technically, this is an acronym…but you guys don't _really_ care, right? I thought so.)

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Three: You Hit Like A Girl_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio was brief but polite in her statement to the press, and she was hurrying back into the curtained off area ten minutes later, shrugging out of her jacket as she went.

She tossed the jacket to one of the assistants cleaning up the main room.

"Put that in my office," she ordered, picking up her hair as she strode into the next room—only to be shoved out of the way by Aoshi.

"What the—" Tokio stumbled, but Aoshi had a firm hold of her arm and she didn't fall.

"Watch out, Tokio-san," Aoshi said.

"What the hell is going on?" she demanded.

"Oh, just your associate trying to kill Himura," Okita answered, rather calmly, all things considered.

"What?" Tokio asked sharply, and she saw Enishi, holding a bent carriage axle like a club, chasing after Kenshin, who was dodging the swings, trying not to loose his balance, and trying to avoid being cornered. She also saw Saitou trying to avoid the swings and get close enough to Enishi to subdue him, but Enishi wasn't letting Saitou slip behind him or get close enough.

"Enishi!" Tokio bellowed. "What the hell are you doing!"

Enishi ignored her, which Tokio did not take very kindly to at all—ignore her, would he?

"Shinomori-san," Tokio said sharply. "Lend me your nightstick, please."

"Tokio-san, I can't—" Aoshi began, but Okita interrupted when he held his nightstick out to Tokio, expression mischievous.

"Will this do, Tokio-san?" he asked.

"I'd prefer two," she replied, accepting his nightstick with a nod.

"You heard the lady, Shinomori," Okita said.

Reluctantly, Aoshi gave up his nightstick. Tokio inspected them, then nodded, and took hold of the short handles on each stick near the end and brought the nightsticks more or less flush against her forearms. Okita and Aoshi's eyes widened; holy hells, she was going to use the nightsticks like tonfa!

They didn't get the chance to ask her: she tore off in the direction where Enishi was driving Kenshin.

"Look out!" they bellowed, making Saitou and Kenshin glance over in their direction, and see Tokio running right for them.

"Tokio-dono!" Kenshin shouted, horrified.

"Tokio, damn it, get back!" Saitou bellowed, abruptly changing course to tackle her.

He wasn't close enough to get to her before she got to Enishi though. She jumped up onto an overturned display case and then nimbly leapt off it to land right behind Enishi. She ducked a swing with the axle, then brought up one of her makeshift tonfa to protect herself and flipped the other and used it to sharply crack against Enishi's back, catching him off guard and sending him forward into the wall; Kenshin dove out of the way to avoid being crushed.

"Get off me!" Enishi bellowed, swinging blindly, and Tokio leapt back and ducked the swing.

She came up as if she'd been pulled upright on a string, both tonfa up and ready to guard, which was fortunate, because Enishi swung at her again. She blocked the swing with her right arm, forcing his arms upward and making him overextend himself, then delivered a wicked sharp left that she knew had to hurt, because she'd knocked out her younger brother's teeth once (it was an accident, honest), and he'd been in pain for a good week afterwards. Enishi's head snapped sharply to the right, caught off guard by the hit, and he lost his balance and slammed into the wall, dropping the axle. He sat there, staring at the floor with a stupefied look on his face, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth, and Tokio watched him for a moment, face stony.

Then, she reversed her hold on one of the nightsticks and whacked him over the shoulders with it:

"_What is wrong with you you stupid freaking idiot_!" she bellowed, whacking him again.

Saitou came up behind her and grabbed her arms.

"Let go," he ordered.

"When I'm done!" Tokio snapped.

Enishi, who had regained his bearings when she'd whacked him, took the opportunity to try and trip her, but Saitou caught the movement and jerked Tokio back while stepping forward and blocking Enishi's foot with his leg.

"Don't even think about it," he said, voice chilling, and Enishi glared up at him hatefully, holding a hand over his angry-red cheek.

Aoshi and Okita came forward and retrieved their nightsticks, and Saitou let go of Tokio. Kenshin hung back from the group, not that that kept Enishi from sending him a murderous look while he spat out blood and gingerly wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"Yukishiro!" Tokio barked. "What the hell were you doing chasing Himura-san around with an axle?"

"I want that bastard out of here, now," Enishi snarled, rising unsteadily to his feet.

"No," Tokio immediately said, and Enishi sent her a furious look.

"It wasn't a request!"

"And you don't give me orders!"

"I want him gone, Takagi!"

"Yeah? Well sucks to be you Yukishiro, 'cause it ain't happenin'! He's investigating our current crisis, or did you forget where you were during your little psychotic episode?"

"I said I don't want him here!" Enishi shouted, taking a threatening step toward Tokio that had Saitou bristling.

"Don't—"

A curt gesture from Tokio made him stop.

"Enishi," Tokio said quietly, voice cold, "don't try to threaten me. Not only am I not afraid of you, I can and will not hesitate to fire your ass right here and now."

"Don't bullshit me, Tokio," Enishi growled. "You can't fire me."

"Want to bet?" she threw back, dark eyes flashing. "When Akira-kun's not here, I'm in charge, or did you forget that?"

"My sister won't let you."

"Your sister isn't a fool," Tokio sharply returned. "She knows I wouldn't fire you without good cause, and wait until she hears you tried to _brain_ _a_ _police officer_ _with a_ _carriage axle_!"

Enishi and Tokio glared at each other for several minutes, and then Enishi stalked out of the room, fuming.

"Himura-san," Tokio said, voice still a little cool. "Are you all right?"

"Yes ma'am," Kenshin immediately said, taking a step toward her. He paused, then hesitantly offered, "Perhaps it would be best if this one were to leave—?"

"Absolutely not," Tokio interrupted. "The Superintendent General told me he was sending his best men to investigate. The hell I'll let Enishi's temper tantrum interfere with this investigation—he can go lock himself up in his office and suck his thumb like a petulant child if he wants, but you're staying here. You're working with me, not him, and I have no objections to your presence, so you're staying and that's final. Now let's finish this crap already."

"Tomoe may object as well, when she realizes this one's here," Kenshin protested.

"Too bad for her, then," Tokio replied, gesturing for Aoshi to give her a new pair of gloves. "I'm in charge of getting this exhibit back up. She's just in charge of promoting it. Her feelings about having you here are irrelevant." Tokio paused and sent him a sharp, searching look. "Unless _you_ have a problem with being here?"

"No Tokio-dono," Kenshin returned quietly, with a faint smile and an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Tokio smiled brilliantly at him.

"Excellent—then we can get back to work."

"Scary lady," Okita observed, following Saitou to finish their sweep of the room.

"So it would seem," Saitou said noncommittally.

"Seems like just your type."

"I'll hurt you."

"I'm just saying."

"Gatotsu to the head, Okita-kun."

"Okay, okay—you don't have to get violent, Saitou-san." A pause. "But she really seems like she'd be just _perfect_ for you…."

"To the _head_, Okita-kun."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

At noon, Tokio ordered a few of the assistants to grab food for everyone, and she insisted on feeding the officers. She also insisted on eating with them in the meeting room.

"We aren't supposed to eat in front of civilians when we're in uniform, Tokio-dono," Kenshin said, looking uncomfortable and apologetic.

"Himura-san," Tokio said kindly, "…shut up and eat your food."

"But—"

"This is the best opportunity to gather everyone's thoughts on all this," Tokio explained. "We're all here together, not spread out around a room and engaged in different activities. I'm trying to be as efficient with our time as possible, gentlemen—I'm sure you want to go home on time tonight. I know I do."

"What do you want to know?" Aoshi asked.

"Have you got any theories?" Tokio immediately replied in kind.

"I do," Okita volunteered. "Theory One: The Disgruntled Employee."

"Hm." Tokio eyed him. "Explain, please, even though I have a feeling I know what it is."

"From what we've seen so far, there's nothing missing," Okita said, leaning forward in his seat. "Everything's just been smashed all to hell. So let's say there's an employee here who's pissed with the bosses for whatever reason. Let's say he's so pissed, he decides to screw you guys over big time by ruining this exhibit—you told us this is the biggest exhibit you've ever opened, right?"

Tokio nodded, watching him with an unreadable expression on her face.

"So he comes in, using his key card, and smashes everything to hell, then leaves."

There was a long pause while the officers watched Tokio digest this theory.

"Interesting," she decided finally. "But your theory only works if nothing's been taken. And considering the worth of some of the items we had on display, I doubt everything's still here."

"But Okita's theory is sort of plausible. Theoretically." Kenshin pointed out.

"Thanks Himura."

"Don't mention it."

"Can the cutesy routine, huh?" Saitou irritably cut in. "Fine, Okita's theory is plausible. But it isn't as likely as Theory Two: Someone Robbed the Museum."

"Someone who was an employee," Aoshi added ruefully.

"Tokio-san did say there was no forced entry," Okita said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair.

"It was sloppy," Kenshin said suddenly, breaking the contemplative silence that had fallen over everyone. "It looked haphazard. Whoever did it obviously isn't a pro."

"No self-respecting criminal would be so messy," Okita agreed.

"So we have an employee," Saitou said, sitting back in his chair, hands steepled before him, "who used his key card to break into the museum. He's either a pathetic excuse for a criminal or an amateur." His gaze went to Tokio. "Or maybe…he's 'pissed off at the bosses and wants to screw them over big time,' to quote Okita-kun. Which leads me to Theory Three: The Disgruntled Employee Robs the Museum."

There was a long pause, and then Saitou lazily murmured,

"Piss anyone off recently, Tokio?"

She raised an eyebrow and sent him a cool look, but answered just the same:

"Want the condensed list or the unabridged version?"

"Told you," Okita said in a sing-song voice to Saitou, staring up at the ceiling and Saitou shot him a killing look; Tokio coughed politely, and hid her smile behind her fist.

"How about those employee records?" Kenshin hurriedly reminded them. "Were you able to get them, Tokio-dono?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. I had to ask Enishi's secretary for them—Fussy Britches is still locked up in his office, sulking."

"Fussy Britches," Okita repeated under his breath, laughing.

"Ahou," Saitou muttered, rolling his eyes.

Aoshi, Kenshin and Tokio took the high road and ignored them.

Tokio tapped a rather impressive stack of papers near her with the index and middle fingers of her right hand.

"There are two employees in particular I'd like for you to look at: the Hiruma brothers, Gohei and Kihei."

"Why them?" Aoshi asked.

"They were the assistants who broke a display case last week," Tokio replied, and Saitou's eyes narrowed.

"_Really_…."

The officers passed the Hiruma brothers' dossiers around so they all got a look, and then Saitou asked,

"Who hired them?"

"Our head of Human Resources, Wu Heishin. He's from Shanghai, living in Japan on a work visa. He's been with us for three years now."

"So the Hiruma brothers broke a display case last week," Kenshin prompted, and Tokio nodded.

"Both claimed to be nowhere near the case when it broke, but I rather find that hard to believe, since they were standing right next to the bloody thing—they didn't realize, I suppose, that I could see them reflected in the other cases," Tokio dryly added, and Aoshi groaned, while Okita rolled his eyes.

"Great," he drawled, "Dumb and Dumber."

"Basically," Tokio returned wearily. "We mostly hired them for the muscle. The younger one, Gohei, is especially suited to the work. Kihei not so much, but we were short people, so he got hired as well."

"Their records don't show any criminal activity," Kenshin said, drumming his fingers lightly on the table top.

"True," Tokio admitted, "but they didn't show up for work today. In fact, they're the only two assistants missing—I checked today's time sheet."

The officers exchanged glances.

"This is almost too easy," Aoshi said.

"_Almost_," Okita stressed. "We still have to find Dumb and Dumber."

"Would it be too much to ask that they're actually home?" Kenshin asked thoughtfully.

"The way things are going, I'd say it's almost certain," Saitou said, rising. He grabbed the phone from the middle of the table, dialed the station, identified himself once his call was answered and asked to be put through to the Superintendent General's office.

"Sir, we might have a lead on the museum break-in," Saitou said, by way of greeting. "We've got suspects, at any rate. Hiruma Gohei and Kihei. I'd like some men to pick them up." He looked over at Tokio. "Address?"

She passed the Hiruma records over to him, and he read off the brothers' place of residence.

"Please have someone contact the museum once they're in custody," Saitou said. "Ask for me or Takagi Tokio. Right, sir."

He placed the phone back in the cradle then looked over at Tokio.

"And now, all we have to do is see if anything's missing," he said.

"So it would seem," she demurely replied. She looked at the rest of the men, and saw that they—like she and Saitou—had ignored their food. "Well go on, eat! You've been working very hard all morning, you must all be starving."

"You really think they're dumb enough to go home?" Okita asked, digging into his lunch with gusto.

"I _know_ they're dumb enough," Tokio muttered, reaching for Saitou's chopsticks and snapping them apart out of habit, then handing them to him as usual.

She didn't realize what she'd done until she noticed the men all looking at her; Saitou looked highly amused, while Aoshi, Kenshin and Okita looked both surprised and suspicious. In response, she smiled demurely, then took Aoshi and Kenshin's chopsticks and also snapped them apart, able to play it off as if she'd meant to break everyone's.

"You should have waited your turn, Okita-san," she chided with a smile.

"Guess so," Okita replied with a smile of his own, which he directed full force at Saitou, who ignored him and ate his soba.

The guys loosened up and didn't feel so weird about eating in front of Tokio once they saw how nonchalant Saitou was about it, and they even engaged her in conversation about the exhibit.

"Sounds like it was a nice exhibit, Tokio-san," Aoshi commented, reaching for his green tea.

Tokio sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, _was_," she said gloomily. "It's going to take months to replace the display cases and the lights and the security system has to be totally replaced, and restoring the pieces'll take forever…and I don't even want to think about all the tickets we sold…." She sighed again, then frowned and balled up her napkin with more viciousness than was strictly necessary. "I'm gonna massacre Wu. That idiot—I'd love to know what possessed him to hire those two buffoons. I mean, we needed people, but still—have some standards, right?"

Kenshin nodded in affirmation, but he sent Saitou a look, and Saitou narrowed his eyes, reading clearly what the red head was telling him, and wondering the same thing himself:

Just why _had_ Wu hired the Hiruma brothers if they were so obviously incompetent?

And just why _did_ that name sound so familiar…?

"Speaking of the security system," Aoshi said thoughtfully, "we should probably have a look at the security tapes."

"I doubt you'll get much," Tokio replied, frowning. "Our head of security, Takeda, said someone tampered with the cameras in the rooms, and we haven't got any film from any of the rooms after ten."

"We should still look at them," Saitou said, idly tapping the table top. "Just in case."

Tokio nodded. "I had Takeda look through all the tapes to see if he'd found anything for you all. I'll call him once we're done with the rooms."

Saitou nodded, still tapping the table top and looking more or less at peace with the world, and Tokio hid a smile; she'd always thought soba was something of a religious experience for him, but she hadn't expected to be right….

"Say, Tokio-san," Okita began, leaning toward her. "I was wondering…where'd you learn to use tonfa?"

"Yeah, I was wondering that too," Aoshi said. "I haven't seen that since I was training in kempo."

"I studied karate for most of my childhood and into my teens," Tokio replied. "Okinawan. Once you've mastered your hands, they teach you to use weapons."

"No shit," Okita said with an appreciative whistle. "Damn. No offense, but I never woulda figured a tiny little woman like you could take down a guy as big as Yukishiro."

"I wouldn't have been able to if he'd been paying attention," she admitted. "It only worked because I surprised him."

"And how," Saitou commented dryly.

"That was very dangerous, Tokio-dono," Kenshin said seriously. He sent Aoshi and Okita stern looks. "And you two shouldn't have given her your nightsticks."

"It's all right Himura-san," Tokio said with a careless flick of her wrist. "Enishi wasn't going to hurt me at all—he was way too focused on you."

"You could have been hit by one of his swings." Kenshin argued, and Tokio grinned.

"Oh no, I'm too short," she replied sweetly, and Okita grinned.

"Yeah, she is," he said. "I think she might be your height, Himura."

"Maybe with her heels," Saitou lazily said. "I'd say five feet even, no heels."

"Five one, thank you very much," Tokio sniffed and the men broke out into grins at her vaguely offended tone.

"So Boss Lady," Okita said, leaning back in his chair. "How many more rooms we got?"

"Three," she said.

"I still say we ain't gonna find jack-shit missing," Okita said with a sigh.

"And _I_ still say you're dreaming," Tokio returned, rising. She shuffled the files into a more or less neat pile, then paused when she caught sight of the Hiruma brothers' files. She picked them up and held them up, looking over at Saitou. "Do you want a copy of the Hiruma brothers' records, Inspector?"

He almost said no. But at the last minute, he changed his mind; the mysterious Wu's equally mysterious reasons for hiring the brothers were still eating at him.

"Yes," he said finally. "As soon as you can get it."

"Then you'll have it within the next ten minutes," she said, picking up the phone and pressing a button.

"I want a copy made of the Hiruma brothers' records," she said without preliminaries. "Send someone in to get them."

She then hung up and looked over at Saitou.

"Willing to wait?" she asked.

"I have nothing but time, Associate Director," he replied, taking out his box of cigarettes.

"Light one in here and I'll put it out in your eye," Tokio promised, and Aoshi, Kenshin and Okita sent her stunned, horrified looks.

Saitou paused, then looked up at her, face placid considering she'd just threatened him.

"That right," he drawled.

"This is a no smoking facility, Inspector," she said sweetly. "I'm afraid if you want to smoke, you're going to have to leave the museum."

They stared at each other for a long tense moment in silence. During the staring contest, a young man came in, looked around, then paused when he saw the scene before him. He didn't understand what was going on, exactly, but he did gather that it was something serious.

"Copy this for Inspector Saitou," Tokio said to the young man, holding out the records she held, never breaking eye contact. "And don't dawdle."

"Yes ma'am," the young man said, taking the files from her and hurriedly leaving the room.

"He's got the right idea," Aoshi muttered.

"Think maybe they'd notice if we ran like hell?" Okita asked.

"Better to stay still," Kenshin advised quietly. "They might attack if they see us move."

"That's bees," Okita replied.

Kenshin shrugged.

"It might work with them," he said mildly, gesturing to the two locked in their little battle of wills.

"Are you idiots done?" Saitou asked, not looking at them.

"No," Okita said automatically.

"Ahou."

"Aw, I get such a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when you call me that Saitou-san. Makes me feel special."

"So would a Gatotsu to the head."

"He really wants to Gatotsu me in the head today," Okita confided to Aoshi and Kenshin.

"Then maybe you should stop baiting him before he decides he's warned you enough," Aoshi said patiently.

"It's fun," Okita protested.

"So is playing with knives," Aoshi shot back. "But just like baiting Saitou, it never ends well."

Kenshin nodded:

"Missing fingers," he said in stage whisper, wiggling his fingers for emphasis, and Tokio let out a snort of amusement and lost her concentration.

"Damn it!" she said, but she was laughing. "You were doing that on purpose!" she accused, pointing at Okita, Aoshi and Kenshin.

"Oro?" Kenshin innocently returned, and Tokio's lips twitched.

"I would've won too," she said with a sigh. "Saitou-san was getting really irritated."

"Feh, don't kid yourself," Saitou returned. "I can block them out when I want to."

"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow. "So that little muscle above your left eye wasn't twitching furiously every time they said something?"

"No."

"She was checkin' out his muscles," Okita stage whispered to Aoshi and Kenshin, then ducked when Saitou hurled his cigarettes at Okita's head; the pack hit the back of Okita's seat, dead where his head would have been if he hadn't moved.

"It might be time to stop now," Aoshi said calmly.

"Good as any," Kenshin agreed.

"Absolutely," Okita said, popping back up holding Saitou's cigarettes. He tossed them to Tokio. "You can hold on to those to make sure he doesn't light up when you aren't looking—he'll do it too, just to piss you off."

"Oh, somehow I have no trouble picturing that," Tokio replied, smiling faintly and tapping the pack absently.

"I'm surrounded by idiots," Saitou growled.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"I hate you," Saitou said to Okita for the eighth time since lunch.

"Aw, Saitou-san, come on," Okita replied cheerfully. "You'll get 'em back…maybe."

"You're lucky she was there," Saitou replied icily, and Okita watched his friend in obvious amusement.

"And why's that?"

"You'd be in a full body cast."

"All right all right," Okita replied, chuckling. "I get it, I won't play keep-away with your cigarettes again. You need to learn to lighten up, Saitou-san."

"Feh!" was Saitou's reply to that opinion, and Okita laughed.

"I'm serious! Gods above—I'd bet anything you're the most depressing man in the whole MPD."

"I'm not here to entertain," Saitou snapped. "Comedy routines aren't part of the job description, Okita."

"Feh, and lucky for you—you'd be out of a job."

Saitou glared at him.

"I'll hit you," he warned.

Okita held up his hands.

"Easy—_easy_."

Saitou snorted and went back to finishing his sweep of the second to last room, frowning fiercely; it and the last room were the largest ones in the exhibit, and the damage was more extensive than it had been in the others.

Okita's accusations about Saitou being dour weren't entirely without merit; by nature, Saitou wasn't really disposed toward small talk or prolonged contact with other people. The fact was, Saitou didn't really like being around people, period—he wasn't totally antisocial because he needed a job that paid decently, and hermits didn't get paid squat, so he had to grit his teeth and endure his fellow man.

And their infinite, stunning and spectacular proclivity for stupidity.

Case in point: his best friend and current annoyance.

"You wanna switch with Himura and Shinomori?" Okita asked innocently. "Maybe bein' around your lady friend'll put you in a better mood."

Saitou decided he'd endured enough.

He abruptly stalked over to Tokio.

"I want my cigarettes," he said without preliminary. "Now."

She blinked up at him, elbow deep in one of the impact-resistant glass display cases, and watched him for a moment from over the rims of her glasses, looking a little disoriented.

"You can't smoke in the museum," she said finally.

"Then I'll go outside," he said impatiently. "Now give me the damn cigarettes."

"Nicotine withdrawal," Kenshin said through a well-executed cough.

Tokio looked over at the red head, then sent Saitou a pensive look.

"All right," she said agreeably, carefully extracting her arms from the impact-resistant glass and dusting her hands off. She carefully took off one of her gloves, then reached into her slacks pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, which she held out to him. "Here you go."

His eyes narrowed and he eyeballed her for a moment, obviously suspicious that she was giving in without a fight, but he took the pack from her with a curt jerk of his head, then turned and strode out of the room. Tokio watched him go, thoughtfully pulling her glove back on.

"Shinomori-san?" she said.

"Yes ma'am?" Aoshi paused in his meticulous search through the glass shards.

"Please help Okita-san with the sweep until Saitou-san gets back. Himura-san and I can handle the nitty-gritty on our own for a while."

"Sure?" Aoshi asked, sending the room a dubious looking-over.

Tokio smiled.

"I'm sure."

Aoshi watched her for a moment, then shrugged and rose, dusting off his hands carefully, and went to join Okita. Tokio returned to the impact-resistant glass she'd been digging through before Saitou's interruption.

She hadn't really had time to process his presence, given the state of things, but now that she was doing something fairly mindless, she could sort of turn it around in her head.

She and Saitou had maintained a fairly casual friendship for the eight years they'd known each other. She knew very few details about his private life, and he knew absolutely none about hers; she'd even refused to tell him her birthday after he'd accidentally let his slip a few years back—that was the only reason she knew he was two years older than she was.

It wasn't lack of curiosity that kept her in the dark, though. It was more like a hopeless—_There's that word again_, she thought with a sigh—knee-jerk reaction: he made her so nervous she forgot about all the things about him she was dying to know until he was gone and she wasn't nervous anymore. She spent a great deal of her energy trying to act comfortable around him, which was very demanding and left little room for things like in-depth conversation. So mostly they threw witty comments back and forth, which Tokio could do very well—thank the gods; her brother had never been as quick on his feet as she was, and Tokio didn't think she'd be able to live it down if she made a fool of herself in front of Saitou.

She probably could have asked Shiori, but Tokio didn't want to give the woman the wrong idea. So she thought Saitou was attractive. So what? But knowing Shiori, the older woman would make a federal case about it, causing her more embarrassment and possibly alerting Saitou to the fact that Tokio really, _really_ liked him.

Like, a lot.

And yeah, the whole "Chiisai" thing really got on her nerves and made her want to strangle him, but at least he no longer hummed that Randy Newman song "Short People" when he saw her. If she had to choose which of the two she hated more, the nickname was infinitely less irritating—and less ego-damaging—than the song.

Which brought her back to the big question that had been plaguing her for the last eight years: if he was such an asshole, what was it about the man that drew her? Because he wasn't an especially nice man; the only way she'd gotten him to stop humming "Short People" was to let him call her "Chiisai," which she'd known he was going to do anyway, so it hadn't really been any great victory on her part. And the whole hugely uncomfortable thing where he teased her via the quasi-sexual harassment…oh gods, how she wished he'd _stop_ _doing_ _that_. It made her panic, because while she was very quick-witted she was not especially experienced in dealing with men in general, and men like Saitou in particular. Plus, there was _so_ much danger of her slipping up and letting him know she was attracted to him, and Tokio was mortally afraid of that for two reasons. One, he'd be impossible to live with (and his ego was already bad enough to deal with, thank you very much), and two, he was so far out of her league…he was only two years older than her but he was at least a whole decade more mature. It was in the way he moved and the way he talked and just in the way he was, period—she didn't have to know the details of his life to know he'd been through some stuff.

He had his moments, though. Like when he lectured her about keeping her purse closed, or not going home too late. He'd completely slip into policeman mode, but she was pretty sure he wouldn't have bothered saying anything if he didn't care about her at least a little. And then there was the day he'd bought her lunch for her one afternoon when she'd been running late. He'd patiently waited for her to show up, and when she finally had, he'd made a couple sarcastic comments about her tardiness and then picked up his soba and left. When she'd gone to Shiori to order, the older woman had slyly smiled at her and informed her that Saitou had already ordered and paid for her meal. He'd even gotten her something she liked—obviously, he'd been paying attention to what she ordered.

It was little moments, little gestures like that, that she quietly collected and kept to herself to sigh over when she was alone.

Still those little attentions didn't necessarily mean he was interested in her the same way she was interested in him. Which was part of the reason she made the effort to keep her distance. It was easier to admire him from afar. And safer for the rest of the world if she didn't feed his ego.

"Tokio-dono," Kenshin murmured, sucking her out of her musings.

"Huh?" She looked over at him and found him watching the doorway rather…well, the best way of describing it was to say he was terribly alarmed. She looked over and immediately figured out why: Tomoe was standing there, looking at the room with horror on her face.

"Head into the next room without being too conspicuous, Himura-san," Tokio said quietly. "Come back out when I call, okay?"

He didn't look particularly thrilled to be essentially running away from a woman, but he also knew better than to argue with her; apparently, anyone who could take on Saitou without batting an eyelid was no one to pick a fight with. So he did as she ordered, exactly as she ordered, and once he was safely out of sight, Tokio rose and called out,

"Tomoe-san."

The other woman jumped slightly and looked over at her, expression slightly taken aback, but she quickly schooled her features when she noticed Aoshi and Okita not-so-covertly watching her.

"Tokio-san." Tomoe's eyes again strayed to the destroyed displays. "I didn't realize it was this bad."

"We're almost done picking through the rooms," Tokio said, nimbly making her way over to the doorway through the maze of glass. "I've already contacted several restoration centers and the most badly damaged artifacts are already in their hands, being looked at. The other things the curators are getting the assistants to group by how important they are."

"Efficient as always," Tomoe said with the barest hint of a grin playing around her mouth.

Tokio smiled.

"Well, it's why you guys pay me. Talked to the boss?"

"I called him at lunch," Tomoe said with a sigh, and Tokio frowned, knowing immediately that there was more bad news. "He's very upset. Several board members've called already, and he's been trying to calm tempers and salvage some of our reputation."

"Crap," Tokio muttered, torn between immediately taking on the duty of soothing the investors and finishing her present duty.

"And I've been dealing with the press all day, and more than my fair share of board members," Tomoe added wearily.

"You leave the board to me," Tokio said decisively after a moment's hesitation. "As soon as I've finished with this, I'll lock myself up in my office and call each one of them personally."

Tomoe smiled this time.

"Now I know why Akira calls you his little pit bull," she said, amused. "You attack everything that tries to hurt him."

"I'm bull-headed, it's my best quality," Tokio returned. "Has Enishi finished crunching numbers?"

"Yes—by the way, why is my brother's face purple?" Tomoe asked, raising an eyebrow.

There was some loud coughing from Aoshi and Okita's direction, and Tomoe frowned at them, wondering what was going on.

"Did you ask him?" Tokio inquired in a pleasant voice.

"Yes, and he said to ask you."

"Well then, in that case, he went psycho and tried to brain one of the investigating officers with a carriage axle in the transportation display."

Tomoe blinked.

"Oh Enishi," she murmured with a sigh.

"Tell him he can leave the figures in my office, I'll get to them later," Tokio said. She sent Tomoe a stern look. "And tell him to stay the hell away from the officers, Tomoe-san. I'm dealing with them all by myself. I don't want any interruptions or interference. The faster they figure out what happened, the faster we can prosecute and move on."

"Out for blood, eh?" Tomoe asked dryly.

"Absolutely," Tokio said firmly. "I lost at least two months' worth of sleep to get this exhibit finished, and Akira-san's health has been crap since we got the okay a year ago. And after all that, someone comes in two days before we open it and destroys more than a year's worth of planning? The only thing keeping me from killing the bastard is the police."

Tomoe smiled at Tokio.

"What would we do without you Tokio-san?" she murmured.

"Die," Tokio replied without hesitation.

Tomoe laughed.

"Probably," she admitted, only half joking. She sighed. "Well, I should go, I'm worried about Akira. I just came up to ask about Enishi and see how far you'd gotten."

"I'm moving fast so we can get the worst of it cleared out," Tokio said. "I'm going to see if I can bully the lighting company to come in tomorrow and replace the spot lights so we can really get started on cleaning up."

Tomoe nodded.

"All right. Everything's under control, not that I thought it wouldn't be. Call if you run into anything you can't handle."

"Right," Tokio agreed, with no intention of actually doing so; Akira and Tomoe had enough to worry about without her adding more to their plates. "Call my cell and let me know how the boss is doing."

Tomoe smiled in appreciation.

"Sure. Thank you Tokio-san."

Tokio bowed her head and smiled. "Don't mention it. You've treated me very well. The least I can do is return the favor."

They exchanged their good-byes, and Tokio waited until she was sure Tomoe was gone. Then she turned and called,

"Himura-san? Tomoe-san's gone."

Kenshin appeared in the doorway, wearing a bemused sort of expression. Tokio cocked her head and watched him with more than a little concern.

"Is something wrong?"

"You seem very concerned for Akira-dono," Kenshin remarked slowly. "Are you related?"

She smiled. "Akira's sort of a cousin on my mother's side," Tokio returned.

"'Sort of'?" Kenshin echoed.

"Well, not sort of—he is. Like…a second cousin, once removed. I think. Anyway, we never really paid attention to the technicalities."

"Keepin' the business in the family?" Okita asked as he and Aoshi joined the conversation.

Her smile widened a little.

"Something like that. He appointed me Associate Director when I agreed to come work for him eight years ago. I was nineteen, fresh out of community college with an associate's degree in business management and no prior experience."

"Oro?" Kenshin yelped.

"Nineteen!" Okita blurted at the same moment.

Only Aoshi looked unperturbed. "I was the acting instructor of my master's kempo school at fifteen," he said mildly.

Tokio looked impressed; so did Kenshin and Okita:

"What'd you do, kill the old acting instructor?" Okita asked, kidding.

"Not quite," Aoshi deadpanned, and Okita stared at him for a moment in silence, face a mixture of caution and disbelief, then took a cautious step back.

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Come on boys, let's get back to work," she advised, motioning for them to get back to what they'd been doing. "We've only got one more room to go through."

Okita saluted sharply.

"Yes ma'am Boss Lady," he said in mock sternness. "Fall in men—you heard the lady."

Tokio shook her head at the man's antics, but she appreciated them all the same. Considering all that had happened today, a few jokes here and there lightened what would have been an otherwise dismal mood.

_And we desperately need some happy thoughts right now_, she decided.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Next Time, Chapter 4: And The Hits Keep Coming:_

"I _really_ fucking hate it when she does that," Okita said, clutching his chest.

---

"We'll see what I can do," Tokio replied, dubious. "He doesn't really listen to me. Well, if I throw stuff at him, it usually helps."

"And gives him a concussion," Tomoe added with faint disapproval in her voice.

"It's not my fault Enishi never ducks, Tomoe-san," Tokio mildly returned. "You'd have thought he'd have figured it out by now."

---

"And _that_, my dear, is why you're more demented than I am."

---

"You're the devil," she spat.

"Yes that's nice, but you didn't answer the question, Tokio."

"I hate you."

"Again, very flattering, but still not the answer I'm looking for."


	4. And The Hits Keep Coming

**A/N:** The day that would not end. : ). But it will, with this chapter. Though in its defense, it was a _very_ busy day….

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

yen: once again, more of a note of explanation than anything, though some of you may be aware of this already; how many yen does it take to equal one dollar, U.S.? Answer: a lot (kidding, kidding; actually, it's like 115 yen or thereabouts, last I checked). So what sounds like an astronomical amount of money is actually not. So stop thinking in dollars, and start thinking in yen.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Four: And the Hits Keep Coming_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saitou was feeling a little less irritable after three cigarettes, and he was slightly more amicable than he'd been when he'd first stalked outside to smoke in the shadow of the museum, haunting a deserted corner where no passers-by would see him.

This tentative good-humor (if the reader will pardon the exaggeration) quickly degenerated into cantankerousness when one of the museum staff hesitantly walked up to him when he went back into the museum, and asked if he was Assistant Inspector Saitou, because there was a man named Kondou Isami on the line. At first, Saitou was pleasantly surprised; hell, they might yet get this case solved by the end of tomorrow. Then he talked to Superintendent General Kondou.

Not only were the Hiruma brothers not home, it turned out the address was bogus—unless, of course, the brothers actually _did_ live in the fast food restaurant they'd given as their place of residence.

Maybe they weren't as stupid as everyone had first assumed.

He went back to the room with a scowl firmly entrenched on his features, which Aoshi was the first to notice:

"Aw hell, he's worse than he was before," he murmured.

Okita looked around, saw the look on Saitou's face and cringed.

"He's _uber_-pissed." He sighed. "Shit. Something musta happened."

"Think he ran out of cigarettes?"

"No way—he'd have gone ape-shit by now."

"Well that's one catastrophe avoided, anyway."

"The address was bogus," Saitou said when he reached Tokio, who was righting an overturned display case with Kenshin's help.

"Hold on a second," Tokio grunted. "Put your weight into it Himura-san!"

"This one is, Tokio-dono," Kenshin replied, sounding winded. "But this case is rather heavy."

Saitou sighed irritably, walked around to where Kenshin and Tokio were and added his foot—and a whole lot of force behind it—to help them lever the thing upright, with the end result being an upright display case that Kenshin and Tokio crashed into the side of and nearly overturned again.

"Ow," Tokio muttered, rubbing her shoulder.

"Orororo," Kenshin groaned weakly, eyes swirling.

"The address you gave me was bogus," Saitou said, glaring at her.

"How is that my fault?" she demanded irritably. "That's the address they gave us."

"And just how are we supposed to find them?"

"You're the cop—_you_ figure it out."

Saitou gritted his teeth.

"I'd be more than happy to—if I had a damn lead!"

"Whoa whoa," Okita yelped, running over. "Time out guys."

Tokio sent Saitou a resentful glare; Saitou's nostrils flared, returning her glare full force.

"How about a phone number?" Aoshi asked, also coming over.

"It's a cell phone, not a land line," Tokio replied.

"I wonder why," Saitou muttered.

"I'll punch you," Tokio threatened.

"Try it," Saitou taunted.

"OI!" Okita bellowed. "I said _time out_! Look, Tokio-san, I know deckin' him'd make you feel better, but it ain't gonna help us."

"It'd help _me_," Tokio muttered, crossing her arms over her chest and sending Saitou a cross look.

"Tokio-dono," Kenshin piped up, rubbing the spot on his head that he'd slammed against the display case. "Okita has a point. Saitou can be irritating, but hitting him won't fix the problem. Is there any other way of getting ahold of the Hiruma brothers? Perhaps an emergency contact?"

Tokio sighed and scrunched her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose and tapping one foot impatiently. The men watched her expectantly. And a few seconds later, she scared the crap out of them when she bellowed,

"Umezu! Where is Wu?"

"I _really_ fucking hate it when she does that," Okita said, clutching his chest.

Kenshin blew out a weary breath, and Aoshi pressed the back of his hand against his left ear, looking slightly pained. Only Saitou looked relatively unaffected, except for the lingering wince on his face.

A harried assistant came running in.

"Tokio-san? What did you need?" he asked.

"Where is Wu?" Tokio demanded.

"I haven't seen him all day."

Tokio twitched. "He's not here yet?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"I'm not sure," Umezu replied, and the officers felt a measure of sympathy for the man, sure that Tokio was about to explode.

To their surprise, she did nothing of the sort. Instead, despite the furiously twitching muscle in her right cheek, she very calmly instructed,

"Then find out for sure, right now, whether or not he's in. And if he is, tell him to get his worthless hide up here. He does _not_ want me to go looking for him. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," Umezu said with a nervous jerk of his head. "I'm on it."

Umezu scrambled off to do her bidding, and Tokio pursed her lips, still looking distinctly pissed.

"Now that you're calmer, Tokio-san," Aoshi said without a hint of irony, "perhaps you'd be willing to give us the cell phone number?"

"It's not a land line but we can still trace it," Saitou added. "They have to send the bill somewhere."

"Watch it be a p.o. box," Tokio muttered bitterly. Her cell phone went off and she sighed in annoyance and dug it out. "What?" she snapped. Her expression changed from aggravated to concerned. "Is he okay? Sure? Do you want me to go over there? N—huh? …Okay. No, I'll tell him, don't worry. Keep me updated. Oh yeah, 'cause I have so much time to sleep," she sarcastically replied to whoever she was talking to, rolling her eyes. "Just call, don't worry about disturbing me, you won't. Okay. 'Bye."

"What's wrong?" Kenshin asked as Tokio ended the call.

"Akira-kun's in the hospital," she said, shoving her phone back into her pocket. "He was very pale and weak when Tomoe-san got home and she got scared and called an ambulance. They're running tests on him right now to find out what happened." She sighed and snapped her gloves off. "I need to tell Enishi." She looked up at the men and sent them rueful smiles. "Take five, guys. I'll be back in a minute."

She turned and began for the doorway. Hearing footsteps behind her, she glanced over her shoulder and found Saitou following her.

"Gonna go out for another smoke?" she asked conversationally.

"I'm going with you," he replied, and she frowned.

"Why?"

He sent her his patented "You-did-_not_-just-ask-that" look.

"He attacked you earlier," he replied, and Tokio snorted.

"Yeah, and I took care of it."

"You're smaller and lighter than he is, Tokio."

"I appreciate the concern, Inspector, but I can handle Enishi. I've known him since we were kids."

"I'm not going argue with you," Saitou shot back. "Now shut up and accept that I'm going with you. It'll simplify your life."

"I never knew you were such a control freak," she snapped.

"And I never knew you were such an idiot," he snapped in return. "Looks like we both learned something new."

She sniffed and turned up her nose, apparently deciding it was beneath her to reply. He honestly didn't care that he'd essentially won the argument; it was enough that she wasn't going to insist on nagging him into staying behind.

They made their way to the offices, and Tokio stopped in front of a startled young woman sitting at a desk who stared at them, eyes wide. Behind her was a door with a neat sign proclaiming it to be "Finances."

"Tokio-san?" the woman asked.

"Is Enishi in?" Tokio asked.

"Well yes but—"

Tokio nodded and strode past the woman for door behind her.

"Tokio-san, Enishi-san said he didn't want to be disturbed!" the woman protested.

"I'm afraid it's rather too late for that," was Tokio's reply. "He's been disturbed since Day One."

She opened the door without knocking and walked in, Saitou following in her wake, on high alert now that they were in Enishi's office.

Enishi was standing in front of a free-standing punching bag, onto which a picture of Tokio was taped and which he was rather ferociously attacking with his fists and feet. When Tokio saw it, she rolled her eyes.

"Oh real mature Enishi," she said, disgusted. "Gonna throw darts at it next?"

"Don't you know how to knock?" Enishi snarled, kicking the picture again.

"Yes, but I choose not to to piss you off," Tokio replied. "Is it working?"

In answer, Enishi delivered a particularly vicious kick to her picture.

"What do you think?"

"I think I could do better."

"What do you want?" Enishi asked, irritated.

Tokio walked over to him and nudged him aside.

"My turn," she said.

"Get your own!"

"Do you want me to kick you instead?" Tokio snapped, and Saitou moved forward.

"Fine!" Enishi shouted in disgust, throwing up his hands. "Just call off your dog, huh?"

"There aren't any dogs here, Yukishiro," Saitou said coolly. "But there _is_ a Wolf. And that's much more dangerous."

"Easy, _easy_," Tokio said. "Play nice you two. We have enough problems."

"Take off your heels," Enishi ordered, walking over to his desk. "I'll strangle you if you put a hole in my bag."

"You'd have to catch me first," Tokio shot back smartly, but she obligingly stepped out of her heels and set them out of the way, next to his desk, then padded over to the punching bag. "So, how's it going?"

"Christ," Enishi moaned, throwing himself into his chair. "Tokio, what the hell is this?"

"Just wondering how you're feeling," Tokio replied sweetly, studying her picture. She looked over at him. "Where'd you get this?"

"From a magazine," Enishi returned absently. "I scanned it and blew it up."

"And printed it on glossy paper," Tokio finished. She grinned at him. "I appreciate the thought you put into it, Enishi. I'm honored your hatred runs that deep."

"You're demented," Enishi retorted.

"Says the man who put so much effort into printing out a picture he was going to use for target practice." She raised an eyebrow. "Who's more demented?"

"It's a tie," Saitou muttered, folding his arms over his chest and glaring at the two of them; they chose to ignore his assessment.

"I assume there's a reason you're here?" Enishi asked dryly, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the desk. "You know, besides the fact that you live to piss me off."

"Absolutely," Tokio said slipping into an offensive stance. She then attacked the punching bag with a roundhouse that nearly toppled it.

"Don't hit so hard," Enishi said idly. "Or you'll owe me a new one."

"I'm smaller than you," Tokio replied, punching with her right fist. "I have to overcompensate."

"Just don't break the bag."

"Ha ha," Tokio said sarcastically. "I'm not a freak, Enishi."

"Feh—says _you_."

"Tomoe-san just called," Tokio said conversationally. Another punch, this one with her left. "Akira-kun's in the hospital."

"And the hits keep coming," Enishi muttered with a sigh. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "Did his heart finally give out?"

"Tomoe-san said when she got home he was white like a sheet and feeble and having a hard time breathing. She said he said he felt light-headed and weird, and she freaked and called for an ambulance."

"So?"

"They're running tests on him now. I told Tomoe-san to let me know what had happened when she got the results."

"Does Sis want me there?" Enishi asked.

"She didn't say, and to be honest, I didn't think to ask. She just told me to tell you."

"She's probably a wreck," Enishi said, dropping his feet to the floor and sitting up.

"She didn't sound that bad, all things considered," Tokio remarked, kicking the bag. "You know, it feels a little weird to be kicking my own picture."

"So don't kick it—you sure she sounded okay?"

"I thought she did. Call her," Tokio suggested.

Enishi pursed her lips, then picked up his phone and dialed his sister's cell phone. Saitou, in the mean time, walked to the punching bag and turned it so that Tokio was no longer attacking her own picture.

"Thanks," she said.

"It was more than a little disturbing to watch," he replied. He held the bag steady for her while she kicked and punched. "What kind of condition does Kiyosato have?"

"Rheumatic heart disease."

Saitou's eyebrows rose.

"How old is he?"

"Your age, thirty," she returned.

"Christ," Saitou muttered. "How in the seven hells did that happen?"

"He had rheumatic fever as a child, and it damaged his heart in such a way that one of the valves doesn't close properly, and leaks blood," Tokio explained. "His heart has to work harder to keep up with his body's needs. It didn't really become a problem until last year, when we started putting together the exhibit. This exhibit's been a headache since the beginning, and he's been super stressed out by it. And the stress's making his condition worse."

"So why doesn't he fix it?" Saitou asked.

"He didn't want to undergo major surgery until the exhibit had opened," Tokio replied, frowning. She kicked the bag particularly hard, and he grunted when it hit him. "But after today's scare, I don't think he'll have much of a say in the matter."

"Excuse me, but they wanna to talk to you, Tokio," Enishi interrupted, holding the phone out to her, and Tokio and Saitou looked over at him, a bit thrown by the interruption.

"Okay," Tokio said after a short pause.

She walked over to Enishi's desk and took the phone from him, and he rose and went back to the punching bag. Saitou obligingly held the bag steady for Enishi, though he did not have the grace be polite about it:

"I'd suggest you not be enthusiastic," he said, glaring at Enishi, who glared back.

"Nice double standard, Inspector," he drawled.

"You call me "Saitou" and nothing else," Saitou growled.

Enishi's expression turned horrified.

"Oh gods, you're sleeping together aren't you? That's why she calls you that—Christ, _of course_ I'd have to deal with the asshole she's currently screwing on top of everything else!"

He went to kick the bag; Saitou shoved it the floor, grabbed Enishi by the ankle and hurled him into the wall.

"I told you not to be enthusiastic," Saitou said mildly, casually sliding his hands into his pockets.

Enishi groaned and slumped over.

Tokio, in the mean time, was talking to Tomoe, and studiously ignoring the noise coming from behind her:

"They admitted him almost immediately," Tomoe said, "and he'll be having the surgery very soon. I'm so glad you bullied him into at least talking about the operation with the specialist before work on the exhibit had started. It's going to make things go faster."

"And we want him happy and worry-free as soon as possible," Tokio said with a nod. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm all right—try to convince Enishi to stay, will you? You need his help right now more than I do. I can handle this, honest."

"I'll see what I can do," Tokio replied, dubious. "He doesn't really listen to me. Well, if I throw stuff at him, it usually helps."

"And gives him a concussion," Tomoe added with faint disapproval in her voice.

"It's not my fault Enishi never ducks, Tomoe-san," Tokio mildly returned. "You'd have thought he'd have figured it out by now."

Tomoe sighed.

"Just do what you can, _without_ hurting my little brother, please," she said wearily.

"I make no promises, but I will try."

"That's the best I'm going to get, isn't it?"

"Yup."

"Well…it's _something_, anyway." There was a man's voice in the background. "Akira wants to talk to you," Tomoe said.

"Sure," Tokio said, and waited while she heard the sounds of the phone changing hands.

"Tokio?" Akira asked, sounding tired and anxious.

"Hey Boss!" Tokio cheerfully greeted. "How're they treatin' you over there? Good? 'Cause if they aren't, I can take some time out of my schedule to go down there and make them."

Behind her, she heard Saitou mutter something that sounded suspiciously like "Gods help them" but she ignored him and listened to Akira's weak chuckle.

"I'm fine," he assured. "They're treating us very well here."

"Now that's what I like to hear," Tokio returned, voice warm with approval. Then, she switched into what Enishi liked to call "Nagging Mother Mode": "By the way, you going to the hospital wasn't what I had in mind when I sent you home."

Akira sighed.

"I know, I know," he said.

"You should have called me and told me the board members were harassing you," Tokio scolded. "I won't tell you you should've not picked up, because you're incapable of being rude, but you should have told them to call me instead of letting them get you all upset."

"I'm the director," Akira protested.

"And you have a delicate heart condition that gets worse under stress," Tokio shot back. "You need to stop doing this to yourself, Boss, it isn't healthy. Besides, I'm supposed to be doing the dirty work. Let me do my job, huh?"

"I want to talk to you about that," Akira said, voice serious. "The doctor's already told me I'm going to be gone for at least eight months."

"Yeah, well, it's open heart surgery," Tokio remarked, hopping up onto Enishi's desk and sitting lotus style.

"Get the hell off my desk!" Enishi bellowed.

Tokio blew a loud raspberry at him:

"Bite me," she snapped back, and Akira laughed and then coughed to cover it up.

"Anyway," Akira said, raising his voice slightly, "since I'm going to be gone for a while…."

"Acting Director, right?"

"I didn't want to do this to you Tokio," Akira said, sounding miserable. "Especially now, with the break-in and the police there—"

"Akira-kun," she interrupted, voice kind, "I was going to be Acting Director eventually. You were going to have to have the surgery sooner or later. It just came a whole lot sooner than we expected. Don't worry about me, worry about getting better after the surgery. I'm fine, the museum will be fine, and I promise not to kill Enishi. But I may hurt him. A little."

She ducked when Enishi threw a vase at her, picked up the stapler off his desk and chucked it at him. He jumped out of the way, and the stapler crashed into the wall and left an impressive dent, and Tokio snapped her fingers.

"Damn—missed," she said, so obviously disappointed that Akira started laughing, and Tokio smiled.

"_There's_ a sound I haven't heard in a while," she said. "You need to laugh more, Boss. It keeps you from screaming and ripping out your hair."

"In that case, I'll try to laugh more often," Akira said, and Tokio heard the smile in his voice. "And remember to take your own advice, eh? I have a bad premonition you're going to need it far more I will in the coming months."

"Gods, you and Tomoe-san really were made for each other," she muttered. "Gloom-and-doom, both of you."

"Speaking of Tomoe, if you need anything, don't hesitate to call her," Akira said.

"Uh-huh," Tokio replied.

"I'm serious, Tokio," Akira returned, and she heard the frown in his voice. "She'll be taking care of me, yes, but I'm not an invalid. She doesn't need to watch me twenty-four hours a day."

"I doubt we'll need to call Tomoe-san for anything, Boss," Tokio replied, tapping her fingers against Enishi's desk. "I've got things pretty well covered."

"That could change," Akira cautioned. "Look, just promise me you'll ask for help if you need it, okay?"

Tokio sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Okay, okay," she relented. "I promise. Tomoe-san'll be the first person I call. Good?"

"Good."

"Okay. Now stop worrying about us, and start worrying about you. I'll come by and visit in a few days and let you know how things are going, and it'll be nothing but good news."

"Don't count your chickens before they've hatched," Akira warned.

"I'm not talking about chickens, Boss, I'm talking about the museum."

"_Tokio_…." Akira said wearily.

"Boss, lighten up," Tokio ordered. "Do you not remember who you're talking to? This is your little pit bull—I clamp down until the job's done."

Akira sighed.

"My go-to girl," he said, a certain fondness in his voice. "Okay, I'll expect good news when you come visit."

"Atta boy," Tokio said cheerfully. "And I aim to please. Now, lay back, relax, try not to complain about the hospital food too much, and I'll be by to bring sunshine and joy into your life. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Akira said with a chuckle. "Thank you Tokio."

"Anything for you Akira-kun, you know that," Tokio replied, her voice sincere. "Take care, okay?"

"All right. You too."

"Absolutely. 'Bye."

"'Bye."

Tokio hung up the phone and looked up at Saitou and Enishi, who were standing by the desk, watching her. Tokio cocked her head and looked at Enishi.

"Wow…your face really is purple," she said finally.

Enishi sent her a blank look.

"What?"

"The side of your face," she said, hopping off his desk and coming to stand in front of him. "Tomoe-san said it was purple. I didn't really notice until just now. Huh. I guess it hurts, huh?"

"What a brilliant observation," Enishi muttered darkly, glaring at her.

She took hold of his chin and turned it so she could get a better look.

"Did you put ice on it?"

"For a little while, yeah."

"Maybe you should put a little more."

"I like the concern, after the fact," Enishi said dryly.

"Well, at the time I was more interested in getting you to stop."

"Is _that man_ still here?" Enishi's voice was dark and bitter.

"Yes, Enishi, Himura-san is still here. He's going to be here for a while longer too, so get used to the idea."

The young man sent her a baleful look, and Tokio smiled and patted his other, uninjured cheek.

"Aw, pissed off are you? Good—my work is done."

"Get out of my office," Enishi snapped, jerking his face out of her reach and walking around to the back of his desk. "And take your fuck buddy with you."

Tokio raised her eyebrows and looked over at Saitou, who was watching her with a sort of sour look on his face, like he really wanted to lay Enishi out but knew he couldn't because she wouldn't let him.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked.

"You heard me—get out and take your _precious_ _Inspector _with you. I have work to do."

She pursed her lips and hoped she could control the urge to blush furiously until the urge had passed. The secret to that, she knew, was not allowing herself to picture Saitou nak—whoops!

She cleared her throat loudly.

"Right, sure," she said hurriedly and turned and started for the door.

"Oh Tokio dearest," Enishi drawled and she paused, knowing nothing good could come from him using endearments. "Forgetting something?"

She blinked and wondered what he could be talking about. The answer came when she happened to glance down and noticed she was in stocking feet.

"Crap," she muttered. Sighing, she turned and walked back to where she'd set aside her heels, leaned down and picked them up.

"Aren't you going to put them on?" Enishi asked, raising an eyebrow, a gleam in his eye she didn't care for; damn it, he'd hit a nerve and he knew it.

"But you have work to do," she replied sweetly, ignoring Saitou and the heat on her face; she was blushing in earnest now. _Damn it_. "And I wouldn't dream of keeping you from your work any more than I already have, Enishi. It'd be the height of rudeness."

"Uh-huh," Enishi replied, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. "And you'd know all about rudeness, wouldn't you?"

"Well, I did learn from you," she pointed out in feigned thoughtfulness, and nearly sighed in relief when Enishi glared at her.

"Would you get the hell out already?" he snapped.

She bowed with exaggerated politeness.

"Of course Yukishiro-san."

"OUT!"

The door slammed shut in her and Saitou's faces a few seconds later, and Tokio watched the door thoughtfully, then grinned.

"He's this close to having a stroke," she murmured happily, showing Saitou with her thumb and forefinger how close she was talking about.

"You really are demented, you know," Saitou remarked, and Tokio shrugged, then dropped her shoes onto the floor and stepped into them.

"It helps pass the time," she replied, then looked up at him with a rueful sigh. "I suppose we should finish."

"There's an idea," Saitou deadpanned, and Tokio smiled a little.

"Feeling better?"

"Beg pardon?"

"You threw Enishi into the wall."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Noticed that, did you?"

"I thought it most prudent to notice but not interfere," she confided as they left the offices.

Saitou smirked.

"Did you now? Well, I appreciate the thought." He paused. "And yes, I do feel better for having thrown him into a wall."

Tokio laughed.

"And then he calls _me_ demented."

"_I'm_ not trying to give him a stroke.

"No, _you're_ trying to put him in a coma."

"I think mine's more humane."

"Not as fun as mine, though."

He pointed at her:

"And _that_, my dear, is why you're more demented than I am."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio's mood was far less jovial later that evening.

In the end, nothing was missing. Good news, to be certain, but frustrating, because the primary motive for the crime was now gone.

Upon returning to her office, her secretary informed her that all the members of the museum's board of trustees had been calling all day demanding to speak to her, which meant she was going to have to apologize and soothe the very ruffled feathers of ten very angry men. She offered to let the officers go home early, but they all insisted on going over the findings with her, so she sighed and allowed them into her office to wait while she attended to the board of trustees.

Two hours later, she was sure she hated every last man on the board.

"Yes Shimada-san, I'm aware of the time," she said patiently, but there was a slight edge to her voice that none of the officers missed. "I do hope you'll forgive me for interrupting your meal, but this is the earliest I was able to return your calls."

There was a long pause, and the men watched her sit rigidly in her seat behind her desk, the muscle in her jaw jumping furiously as she glared daggers at the papers littered before her.

"Yes, well, I was rather busy dealing with the aftermath of the break-in, you understand," Tokio said tautly, her glare deepening. Her mouth tightened just a little more. "Uh-huh. Of course, Shimada-san—very rude of me."

The pencil she'd been holding in her hand snapped in two.

"Oh shit," Okita muttered; Kenshin and Aoshi grunted in agreement of that assessment.

"I'd be more than happy to put together a report on the damages for you, Shimada-san," Tokio said with forced politeness. "Oh no, I assure you, nothing would give me greater pleasure."

"I bet she wouldn't say that if she had the option of strangling him," Aoshi murmured.

"Cut the commentary, it's annoying," Saitou snapped.

"It's entertaining," Okita corrected, lifting a finger as if to make a point. "As is watching Tokio-san act so nice when we all really know she wants to break something."

"If you don't stop, the something she breaks may well be your head, and I'll gladly look the other way," Saitou shot back.

"Aw, go smoke a cigarette," Okita ordered.

"Of course, Shimada-san," Tokio said suddenly after a long pause; her eyelid was now twitching violently. "And I apologize again for my unforgivable rudeness. Oh no sir, it won't happen again. Yes sir. Good-night sir."

She slammed the phone down into the cradle so hard that Aoshi, who was standing closest to the desk, jumped back, startled.

"You stupid fat pig!" Tokio bellowed at the phone.

Okita looked over at Kenshin.

"That'll be twenty-three hundred yen, please."

Kenshin looked disgruntled:

"You cheated," he muttered, already digging out his wallet.

Okita grinned cheerfully.

"Nope—I just remembered a pattern. First came rat-faced bastard, then stupid fat pig, then pompous ass, and then came piss-for-brains ahou, which happens to be my personal favorite, by the way. Now cough it up, girly man."

Kenshin glared at Okita.

"Look who's talking," he mumbled as he counted out the yen.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"I thought so."

"Tokio-san?" Aoshi asked, cautiously taking a step toward the desk.

She was rubbing her temples and growling something under her breath. Suddenly, without warning, she bellowed,

"Sae!"

And, for the millionth and one time that day, scared the absolute crap out of the officers.

A squinty-eyed but otherwise pretty woman appeared in the doorway, looking serene and entirely unaffected by Tokio's shout.

"Yes ma'am?" she asked.

"Tea, from anywhere, now," Tokio ordered, voice brusque.

"Anything else? Food?" Sae asked, looking concerned.

"Just the tea, thank you."

Sae looked dubious, but bobbed and left the room, and Tokio sighed and sat back in her chair.

"I'm sorry that took so long, gentlemen," she said, then frowned when she saw Okita clutching his chest. "What's the matter with you?"

He gaped at her.

"You're kidding, right?" he asked voice ringing with disbelief.

"No," she replied, "why would I be?"

"Never mind," Kenshin said slowly after a short, incredulous pause. "Tokio-dono, perhaps now that you're done with your board members, we'll be able to—"

"Tokio!" Enishi yelled, barging in without knocking.

"I don't want to see you unless you've got good news," Tokio warned, glaring at him and jabbing a finger in his direction. "If you're here to give me bad news, get the hell out."

"Did you look at the bloody report you nagged me into putting together?" Enishi demanded impatiently.

Tokio blinked.

"Report?" she asked, and Enishi's hair stood on end.

"Damn it woman! You ordered me to have it to you by four and you _still_ haven't looked at it? What in the _seven_ _hells_ did I rush for?"

"Oh shut up," Tokio ordered irritably. "I had to deal with the board members before they all descended on the museum and got in the way of the investigation."

"So you're going to look at it now, right?" Enishi asked through gritted teeth, in a tone of voice that said the answer had better be yes.

Tokio pursed her lips and squinted at the mess of papers on her desk, then reached forward and grabbed a thick packet and squinted at the front page. She then held it up for Enishi to see.

"This it?"

"Yes."

Tokio tossed it over her shoulder.

"I don't have time to read it—summarize it."

There was a long pause, and then Enishi roared,

"WHAT?"

"You don't have to yell, you know," Tokio said mildly, "I can hear you just fine."

"I spent the entire day on that!" Enishi shouted.

"I know you did, and please believe me when I say that I appreciate the effort on your part. And at any other time, I would happily sit here for three or four hours and meticulously pick through it, but I haven't got that luxury, Enishi. So since you're still here and you wrote the damn thing, tell me what I need to know. It'll simplify everyone's life."

"Strangling you would simplify my life," Enishi said bitterly.

"Yes, that's a sweet thought, Enishi, we'll play later. Work now, if you please."

Enishi lifted both hands and seemed to be trying to throttle her from afar, but he stopped himself before he completed the illustration and lowered his hands to clench at his sides.

"Fine," he said tightly. "I'll summarize it for you, my dear, _dear_ Tokio."

Tokio nodded, smiling faintly.

"Atta boy, internalize that anger—it'll make a nice ulcer some day."

Enishi muttered something and shut the door, then walked into the office and toward Tokio's desk. He stooped down and picked up his report, then straightened and began to flip through it. Tokio got out of her seat and tugged at his sleeve.

"Sit," she ordered.

"I hate it when you hover over my shoulder," Enishi immediately said, and Tokio rolled her eyes.

"I don't hover, stupid, and even if I did, I don't have my glasses so I can't see anything anyway."

Saitou reached over, plucked her glasses from off the top of her head and held them out to her, never saying a word. Tokio took them with a nod, then looked back at Enishi, who was glaring at her accusingly.

"I won't put them on you baby!" Tokio snapped.

"Fine—no hovering," Enishi reminded, sending her a sharp look.

"Yes yes, no hovering—now quit being such a baby and sit," Tokio said impatiently.

"What about you?" Enishi asked as he took the proffered seat.

In answer, she hopped up onto her desk to perch on a corner. She crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands over her knee, still holding her glasses.

"Summarize—now," she ordered.

Enishi rolled his eyes, then flipped through the report.

"We lost all our security cameras, all the decorative lighting and all the display cases," Enishi said after a moment. "That's roughly one million yen in damages."

Okita hissed; Kenshin winced; Aoshi frowned; Saitou raised an eyebrow; Tokio's eyelid twitched ever so slightly.

"'Roughly'?"

"You had me do this before you were done," Enishi reminder her. "Once I get the damage report, I'll have an exact answer, but altogether, I'd say the actual number's closer to three million."

"Jesus Christ," Okita murmured.

"How much money do we have to play with?" Tokio asked, setting her glasses down on her desk.

"We blew a lot of money on promotions and all that garbage, never mind the exhibit itself," Enishi said, flipping through the report. "Our income's pretty steady, but no way we can make up what we've lost with that alone. I'd have to look over our accounts for an absolute number, but right now, I'd hazard about five hundred thousand or so. Any more, and we'll be in the red."

"Hm. And we don't need that on top of everything else." Tokio absently cracked her knuckles. "We're in good standing with the area banks, right?"

"Of course," Enishi said a little stiffly—this was his area, after all.

Tokio smiled faintly at him.

"Okay, we'll have to take out a few loans. What's the most we can take out?"

"I'll have to check," Enishi replied, then sent her a serious look. "I wouldn't count on much, though—we're a small museum."

"I'm not counting on the loans exclusively," Tokio replied. "You're forgetting the various generous historical societies in Tokyo."

Enishi stared at her, then slowly smiled.

"How many calls?" he asked.

"So far only three, but the crisis is still young," Tokio said. "I had Sae get down names and numbers, and I'll be calling them tomorrow to make a deal."

"They might not be willing to pony up a million yen, Tokio," Enishi cautioned.

"I have no intention of asking for that much," she replied. "We're desperate, not greedy."

"Once you have a deal brokered, let me know, and I'll get a budget worked for you," Enishi offered, and Tokio nodded.

"Sounds good." Her face took on a hesitant look. "Speaking of a budget…can we afford to replace the display cases?"

Enishi watched her for a moment, then looked down at the report.

"Did you want the bad news first, or the bad news?" he asked, and Tokio groaned.

"I hate you!" she whined, shoving his shoulder. "You _never_ have good news for me!"

"Well that's not my fault!" Enishi snapped. "Stop spending so much damn money and I'll have a lot less bad news for you!"

Tokio sighed.

"All right," she said wearily, "lay it on me—I can take it. Maybe."

"Either we buy all glass cases again or we use plastic," Enishi said, and winced in anticipation of her explosion.

Tokio did not disappoint:

"We are not using plastic and how you _dare_ you even _think_ that word in this office!" she bellowed.

"Why not, if it's cheaper?" Okita piped up and Enishi sent him a wide-eyed, "Shut-up-if-you-want-to-live!" look.

"We do not use plastic, period, _end of discussion_!" Tokio roared at Okita, who flinched so violently he nearly fell out of his seat.

There was a long pause, and then Saitou said dryly,

"She's got issues with plastic, Okita. That's why."

Okita sent Saitou a withering look that the other man pointedly ignored.

"So the choice should be easy then, with one of the materials out of the running," Aoshi said, deciding someone had to be rational.

"You want me to buy cheap glass, don't you?" Tokio accused, glaring at Enishi.

"We can't afford anything high-end," Enishi began, already gearing up for a new fight.

"Crappy cases are the same as no cases," Tokio snapped.

"Not true," Enishi shot back smartly. "You can't cut your fist against glass that isn't there if you're trying to steal something."

"Don't you dare try to use logic on me," Tokio warned, and Enishi rolled his eyes.

"Believe me I won't—I know a lost cause when I see one—OW!" he yelped as Tokio clamped down on his ear lobe and twisted. "Let go let go _let go_!"

"Apologize and I'll think about it," Tokio said sweetly.

"Go to hell—OW!" he shouted as she twisted harder.

"I'll rip the piercing out," she threatened.

"I'll kill you," Enishi shot back, snarling.

"Not before I rip the piercing out," she replied, twisting a little more.

"I refuse to apologize for telling the truth—SHIT TOKIO THAT HURTS!"

"Say it!"

"Never!"

Twist. Yelp.

"Say it!"

"I'll burn in hell before I apologize to you!"

Saitou had had enough:

"All right, break it up," he ordered, grabbing Tokio's arm and yanking. Enishi shouted another string of expletives when Tokio not only didn't let go, she nearly ripped his piercing out.

"Let go, Tokio," Saitou said.

"After he apologizes."

"Chiisai…."

The result was instantaneous: Tokio let go of Enishi's ear and threw a sharp right at Saitou's face, which he caught while simultaneously grabbing her left wrist in case she got any ideas. He pinned her legs against the desk with his hip—he still vividly remembered Enishi's near fatal "accident" earlier in the day—and watched her with one eyebrow raised. She glared at him and tried to head-butt him. He lifted his head and grimaced slightly when she rammed the top of her head into his neck, but it was better than letting her break his nose.

"Ready to behave?" Saitou asked mildly when she didn't move.

"You're the devil," she spat.

"Yes that's nice, but you didn't answer the question, Tokio."

"I hate you."

"Again, very flattering, but still not the answer I'm looking for."

"Fine!"

He inclined his head and obligingly let go of her and stepped back in time to avoid the kick between the legs she'd been waiting for the opportunity to deliver.

Saitou raised an eyebrow at her.

"Liar."

"Ass."

Aoshi coughed politely, and everyone looked at him.

"Perhaps we could finish?" he suggested, tone completely respectful.

"Yes, please," Enishi said dryly, sending Tokio an amused look. "Unless you'd rather keep trying to kill your Inspector—_Chiisai_?"

Saitou had to grab her around the waist to keep her from diving at Enishi, who blanched a little and shot the chair back, out of range of her hands, while she called him awful things and threatened to do even more awful things to him. Okita, Kenshin and Aoshi made no attempt to intervene.

"Saitou-san's got it covered," Okita commented, as if to explain why they were doing nothing, not that anyone was truly interested.

"Yup," Aoshi and Kenshin agreed, watching the scene.

"Hey," Aoshi said suddenly as a thought occurred. "What about the security tapes, Tokio-san?"

Tokio paused in her attempt to kick Saitou in the knee so he'd let go of her and she'd be able to kill Enishi. She watched Aoshi for a moment, thinking, then cocked her head.

"You know, I completely forgot you asked me for those," she said finally. "I can't believe I forgot. Hold on a second, I'll call our head of security and have him bring up the tapes."

Enishi cautiously wheeled himself closer to the desk after Saitou set Tokio down again. She seemed to ignore her coworker, going to the phone, picking it up and asking Sae to get ahold of the head of security for her. Enishi breathed a sigh of relief…then shouted an expletive when Tokio abruptly kicked him in the shin.

"Now we're through," she said demurely, straightening her blouse, and Okita snickered.

"Son of a…." Enishi groaned and clutched his shin.

"You're a vindictive woman," Saitou commented.

Tokio shrugged.

"If you say so."

Sae arrived with tea for everyone, and Takeda, the head of security, showed up not long afterwards.

"I brought the tapes for you Takagi-san," he said with a bow.

"Thank you—have you looked at them at all?"

"Yes ma'am, exactly as you asked me to." he said. He sent her another pained and deeply repentant look. "I'm very embarrassed by this, Takagi-san."

"You should be," Saitou remarked coldly. "You've failed miserably at your job, you realize."

The man flushed, and Tokio not so subtly elbowed Saitou in the ribs.

"Quiet you," she said through gritted teeth, "he's my employee, not yours."

"He should be fired for incompetence," Saitou replied, not backing down an inch.

"Quiet, I said," Tokio snapped. "Takeda-san, did you find anything the officers might find useful?" she asked politely, turning her attention back to the man with an encouraging smile on her face.

Takeda frowned.

"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted. "One of the cameras _did_ manage to get a shot of someone, but it's not very good."

"Of course not," Tokio murmured with a sigh. "All right Takeda-san, show us please."

Takeda obligingly connected the VCR he'd brought along to the TV in the corner of Tokio's office, then popped the tape in and played it. He fast forwarded through a good three hour's worth of film before pausing and looking over his shoulder at Tokio. She, Enishi and the officers had gathered around the TV, she flanked by Okita and Enishi on one side, Saitou, Aoshi and Kenshin on the other. At Takeda's questioning look, Tokio nodded, and he pressed play.

The film was grainy and shadowy. They all watched in silence as the lights suddenly went out, and then watched the emergency lights kick on a few moments later. By then, the culprit was already in the room. He was a large, hulking man, and they only saw him for a moment before he raised his hand and bashed the camera in with a crowbar. Then the screen went snowy and that was that.

"That sucked," Okita said after a moment.

"That sucked muchly," Enishi agreed. "How the hell does that help us?"

"I'm almost positive now that it's the Hiruma brothers," Tokio piped up, looking oddly pleased.

"Why's that?" Saitou asked, looking down at her.

"The man moving around in that room—that was the first room, right Takeda-san?—was a very large man. He looked like a bear."

"That could have been a trick of the light," Kenshin said dubiously. "Or lack thereof."

"Light or a lack of it ain't that good," Tokio drawled. "If it was one of the men on our staff, then it could only be two: either Isurugi Raijuta or Hiruma Gohei. And Isurugi-san, the pompous jerk, showed up today. Gohei did not."

"How long's Isurugi been with you?" Saitou asked.

"Five years," Tokio said absently. "He's a general pain in the butt, but he's never caused any real problems, aside from being difficult to work with—legend in his own mind, you see."

"Has he got a record?" Aoshi asked, and Tokio looked offended.

"Do you think so little of us, Shinomori-san?" she replied.

"You forget, Tokio," Saitou said, sliding his hands in his pockets, "the address we were given was a fake. That puts all employee files under suspicion."

"Whoa whoa," Enishi interrupted. "Time out—the address was _fake_?"

"That's right, I never got around to telling you that," Tokio said with a sigh. "Yeah, apparently it was."

"Unless the Hiruma brothers actually _live_ in a WacDonald's." Saitou said.

"Or maybe in the dumpsters out back of the place," Okita dryly added, cracking his neck.

"But that's impossible," Enishi protested. "We always do background checks on the employees. We would have caught something like that right from the start."

Tokio frowned, pondering that. Saitou, meanwhile, took one of his hands out of his pockets and jerked a thumb in Takeda's direction.

"With a crack security staff like this one?" he asked dryly. "I'm surprised the museum's still in the black."

Tokio whacked his arm.

"I told you to leave my staff alone," she snapped. "It's not Takeda-san's fault about the background check, anyway."

"So whose is it?" Kenshin asked.

"Wu's," Enishi and Tokio said in unison.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chpt 5: I Wanna Be Sedated:_

Someone somewhere was really enjoying this.

Saitou Hajime was not that someone.

---

"I can't bend like tha—" Tokio coughed and cleared her throat. "Never mind. Let's just say I find it difficult."

---

"Not knowing his face is no excuse for not knowing his name!" Saitou snapped.

"What kind of psychotic logic is that!" Tokio demanded.

---

"'Queen'?" Okita repeated.

"'Scythe'?" Saitou and Aoshi echoed.

"Oro?" Kenshin volunteered.


	5. I Wanna Be Sedated

**A/N:** This chapter is going to be rather silly. Okay, it's going to be _quite_ silly. Enjoy. ;).

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

For once…nothing. Hm. Oh well.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Five: I Wanna Be Sedated**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Someone somewhere was really enjoying this.

Saitou Hajime was not that someone.

He'd been up most of the night, trying to track down the Hiruma brothers and Wu Heishin, and wondering how he was going to explain to Tokio that her head of Human Resources was number five on Japan's most wanted list—without blowing his stack.

The human propensity for stupidity, it seemed, was boundless.

He hadn't had much sleep and he'd finished off his last pack of cigarettes in the wee hours of the morning, so he was tired and suffering severe nicotine withdrawal, which meant he was in no mood to suffer—well, anyone, really.

Fate had never really cared what Saitou was in the mood for, though. It was sort of like when a friend ordered for you without clearing the order first. Sometimes you made out with your stomach and taste buds intact, but most times you were doomed to disappointment.

And possibly, in extreme cases, food poisoning.

He arrived at the station early to check in with Superintendent General Kondou, and not to his surprise, saw that Kenshin had already arrived.

"You look like you had a rough night," the red head commented mildly.

"I'm going to strangle _that woman_ when I see her," Saitou replied, slapping his paperwork down on Kenshin's desk.

"Now Saitou, Tokio-dono isn't so bad," Kenshin said with a grin. "She was very helpful and gracious." Pause. "When she wasn't yelling, that is."

"She also hired the fifth most wanted man in Japan," Saitou growled.

Kenshin blinked.

"_Oh_—_that_ Wu," he murmured. "This one _thought_ that name sounded familiar." He frowned. "That hardly sounds like her, though—she seemed so intelligent."

"She also seemed relatively normal," Saitou muttered, folding his arms over his chest and thinking back to the Tokio he knew from the luncheonette and the Tokio he'd met yesterday.

"As if _you_ were anyone to talk about _normalcy_," Kenshin said under his breath.

"As if _you_ were anyone to lecture _me_ on talking about _normalcy_," Saitou shot back, and they glared at each other for a long moment.

"You're not yelling at Tokio-dono," Kenshin said finally.

"The hell I'm not," Saitou said. "Woman needs a good—"

"This one will not allow it, Saitou," Kenshin said firmly. "If you're going to share your findings with her, you'll be civil about it. Tokio-dono has enough to deal with, without adding _you_."

"And just when the hell did you become a fan of hers?" Saitou demanded, and Kenshin smiled faintly, an odd sort of smile that told Saitou absolutely nothing.

"This one is returning a kindness, nothing more."

"What, with Yukishiro?"

Kenshin shook his head, and Saitou decided he didn't have the patience to try to get an answer from the smaller man. Oh well. Maybe he could weasel it out of Tokio later.

"So," Kenshin said, sitting back in his chair now that their little battle of sorts had ended. "We're switching our search to Wu?"

"No, we're adding him to the list. I'm reasonably sure that he was behind the break-in, but we need Dumb and Dumber to know for sure."

Kenshin tilted his head, looking thoughtful for a long moment, then nodded faintly.

"How are we going to go about this?" he asked.

"Once Shinomori and Okita drag their lazy asses in, we'll put something together."

Kenshin pursed his lips.

"Odd that they aren't here yet," he commented, leaning back in his chair, expression thoughtful.

"Shinomori yes—Okita no." Saitou returned. "As a matter of fact, if he'd been here on time, I'm pretty sure that would have been the signal we've all been waiting for that the world is in fact going to end some time soon."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio ran up the museum steps just as Saitou, Kenshin, Aoshi, and Okita arrived. They watched her in silence until she'd disappeared into the museum, apparently without noticing the two police cars that had pulled up just behind her, or the four officers who'd gotten out of said police cars. Then Okita remarked,

"That should be an Olympic event."

"She'd win gold," Aoshi said with a nod.

"Those heels look higher than yesterday's," Kenshin said, looking concerned. "She shouldn't really be running in them. She could fall."

"No way," Okita scoffed. "Tokio-san's like a cat. She shoulda fallen down like eight times yesterday, but she didn't so much as stumble. The lady's got great balance."

"We're wasting time," Saitou said irritably; he hadn't had time to go out and get a pack of cigarettes before they'd had to leave the station, which meant he was _really_ cranky now. Besides, he didn't really like them talking about Tokio, even if it was entirely polite. Because eventually, the talk would turn to him and his apparent connection to her, and Saitou was a man who kept his private life private. And he considered his friendship-of-sorts with Tokio private.

"Fine fine—Captain Miserable," Okita grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Saitou's eyelid twitched at the name; Okita had given it to him some time ago, in honor of the fact that every time he got in one of his moods, he made everyone around him miserable.

It was a nickname that did nothing to improve Saitou's mood.

A couple of knots on the head later, Saitou was still irritable; Kenshin was resigned to being a buffer; Aoshi was enjoying being a spectator; and Okita was suffering from a really bad headache.

Today was looking good, all right.

They walked into the museum and straight to Tokio's office, where Sae—who was desperately trying to keep some papers from falling off her desk while attempting to hold a conversation over the phone—didn't bother to announce them. While Kenshin the ever-polite helped Sae by taking charge of the papers, Saitou knocked on the door to Tokio's office.

"We don't want any!" Tokio called.

"Us either," Saitou dryly replied.

There was a pause, and then Tokio called,

"Come in."

He opened the door and walked in and found her seated on her desk lotus style, her heels on the floor in front of her desk. He paused, raising an eyebrow.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked incredulously as Aoshi and Okita walked in behind him.

"Trying to find serenity, but it's being spiteful," she replied with a sigh.

"Tried yoga?" Aoshi asked idly, leaning against the wall and not looking at all surprised to see Tokio sitting on her desk. "It's supposed to help with that."

"I can't bend like tha—" Tokio coughed and cleared her throat. "Never mind. Let's just say I find it difficult."

Okita smirked, and Saitou shot him a warning glare; Okita wiped his smile off his face and sent Saitou a look of total and complete innocence.

Kenshin walked in, saw Tokio on her desk and stopped.

"Oro?"

"Good morning Himura-san," Tokio greeted with a smile.

"Good morning Tokio-dono," Kenshin replied, with a bob of his head. "May this one ask what you're doing?"

"She's looking for serenity," Aoshi drawled.

"Oh." Pause. "And how's that going for you?"

"It's not," Tokio muttered, frowning.

"How come you didn't say good morning to us?" Okita asked, looking put out.

"How rude of me," Tokio replied, looking amused. "Good morning Okita-san…good morning Shinomori-san…good morning Saitou-san." she said, bobbing her head in each man's direction.

"Good morning Tokio-san," Okita returned, bowing. He straightened and grinned. "Now that's better."

"I'm glad you approve," Tokio drawled, one eyebrow raised. "So," she said, folding her hands in her lap. "What can I do for you gentlemen today?"

"We need to interview Wu," Saitou said, folding his arms over his chest.

Tokio frowned. "All four of you?" she asked.

"No, just two of us," Aoshi explained. "The other two are going to have another, more in-depth interview with the security guards who were on duty the night of the break-in."

"Hm." Tokio's frown deepened. "Well, I can tell you where to find the security guards. As to Wu…you'll have to wait for Enishi to come in."

Kenshin sighed, expression rueful, and Tokio sent him a pitying look.

"Why?" Okita asked before Saitou could.

"I try to have as little contact with Wu as is humanly possible," Tokio replied with a sniff. "I can't stand him."

"What'd he ever do to you?" Okita asked, looking surprised.

"Exist, mostly."

Okita raised his eyebrows and looked over at Saitou for the other man's response to that statement.

"What's Yukishiro's role in this?" Saitou asked, not really interested in Tokio's reasons for disliking Wu.

"He's the only one who can get ahold of Wu. Phone numbers and that sort of thing," Tokio qualified. "Me, I try not to know too much about the man."

"That's obvious," Saitou said coldly, "considering that you hired him despite the fact that he's the fifth most wanted man in Japan."

Silence descended on the office. Tokio stared at Saitou with wide, surprised eyes, her mouth hanging open a little. He glared back at her, waiting for her excuse for being so reprehensibly stupid—he was sure it was going to be one for the books.

"What?" she asked finally.

"You heard me the first time," he returned.

"No, I'm very sure I misheard you," Tokio snapped. "Because I swore I heard you say Wu was the fifth most wanted man in Japan—"

"I did." he interrupted, and she stared at him again with wide eyes, only this time they weren't so much surprised as…well, "pissed," he supposed.

It was quiet again for a long time, and then Tokio abruptly bellowed,

"SAE!"

Okita jumped three feet into the air, and Aoshi and Kenshin cringed in unison. Saitou's face twisted into a snarl—this was _not_ helping his mood.

"Oh gods, she's doing it again!" Okita moaned.

Aoshi sighed. "This too shall pass," he said gloomily.

"Not fast enough," Okita replied.

"This one seconds that opinion," Kenshin said unhappily.

Sae appeared in the doorway, face the picture of composure.

"You called Tokio-san?" she asked without a trace of sarcasm.

"Is Enishi here yet?" Tokio demanded.

"Yes ma'am, he just walked into his office."

Tokio vaulted herself off her desk and landed solidly on the floor, then stalked out of the office, past Saitou—who did not appreciate being so unceremoniously dismissed—and Sae—who calmly returned to her desk. Tokio did not pause to slip back into her heels; Saitou was reasonably sure she didn't even remember that she wasn't wearing them.

"Should we follow?" Aoshi asked.

"Yes," Saitou snapped, irritated and frustrated—_gods_, he wanted a cigarette. "If we don't go she'll probably kill him, and then we'll have to deal with premeditated murder on top of the investigation." He glared balefully at the door. "And I have enough paperwork to wade through as it is."

So the officers followed in Tokio's furious wake, watching secretaries and executives alike run for their lives when they saw her coming. Saitou was actually a little impressed that everyone was so obviously afraid of her. He kinda liked it. Thought it was completely surreal after eight years of thinking of her as sweet, harmless Chiisai, but liked it.

He probably would have enjoyed it more if he'd had nicotine in his system.

She got to Enishi's office and threw the door open, completely ignoring Enishi's secretary, who wasn't even putting up a fight this time; the young woman had dived under her desk when she'd seen Tokio coming. Saitou and Kenshin were the first to reach the doorway, just in time to hear Enishi demand,

"What the hell Tok—"

and also just in time to see Tokio's fist interrupt him:

"You stupid idiot—OW!" Tokio yelped, clutching her hand to her chest protectively. "Damn it!"

"Oh for the love of—what the hell are you doing?" Saitou demanded, striding into the room and to her. He grabbed her wrist and examined her hand.

Enishi, meanwhile, was watching Tokio with furious eyes, his glasses crooked from the force of her blow and a corner of his mouth bleeding.

"What the hell is your problem!" Enishi yelled.

"You're an idiot, that's my problem!" Tokio snapped back.

"I haven't done anything!"

"You hired Wu!"

"I recommended him—_you _and _Akira_ hired him!"

"You're still an idiot!"

"SHUT UP!" Saitou bellowed, having reached his limit for their bickering. "Yukishiro sit your ass down in a chair and shut up. And you," he said, voice chilling as he glared down at Tokio menacingly. "Hold still."

Enishi didn't complain, and did exactly as he was ordered, but he continued to glare in Tokio's direction; Tokio glared right back. Kenshin stood off to the side and sighed wearily, while Aoshi and Okita leaned against the wall, arms crossed over their chests and having seemingly decided that absolute silence was the best policy. Saitou, in the mean time, gently examined Tokio's knuckles.

"They aren't broken," he said finally. "But you'll probably need some ice."

"I'll get that," Okita offered in a rush, wanting to avoid having Tokio yell for Sae again.

Saitou jerked his head and Okita left. Aoshi wandered over to where Enishi sat behind his desk, glaring at Tokio. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to the other man:

"Blood's a bitch to get out," he said mildly.

"Thanks," Enishi gruffly muttered, taking the handkerchief and gently dabbing the corner of his mouth. "Now somebody wanna tell me why I'm being attacked? And what does Wu have to do with it?"

"Yukishiro-san," Aoshi said calmly, "did you happen to know that your associate, Wu Heishin, was the fifth most wanted man in Japan, a known member of the Chinese Mafia and a gun runner?"

"He's _Chinese Mafia_!" Tokio exploded. "Enishi you _stupid_ son of a—"

"I said shut up," Saitou snapped.

Tokio sent him a baleful look.

"You don't order me around," she said tightly.

"I'll break fingers if you don't cooperate," Saitou growled, and Kenshin decided it was time to intervene:

"Saitou, cool off. Tokio-dono, please be patient and don't interrupt."

Tokio pouted like a petulant child, but she grudgingly kept her mouth shut, and Saitou sent Kenshin a dirty look; okay, he was _definitely_ going to find out what was going on between these two.

Enishi, meanwhile, was doing a really good impression of a fish.

"'Chinese Mafia'?" he repeated, incredulous, staring at Aoshi as if he'd just announced he had a particular fondness for eating babies roasted over an open fire. Ketchup was optional.

Aoshi didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he seemed to decide it wasn't worth pursuing.

"Yes," he said, perfectly calm and expectant.

"But…that's…no way!" Enishi said finally. "That's impossible! What the hell would a member of the Chinese Mafia be doing working at a fucking Tokyo _museum_! Do you guys not realize how _messed up_ that sounds?"

"It _does_ sound dumb," Kenshin admitted, looking over at Saitou, who was seriously entertaining the idea of shooting the lot of them and going out to find a pack of cigarettes.

"Wu's _not_ Chinese Mafia," Enishi insisted. "You guys screwed up, got him confused with someone else or something—"

"I didn't screw up anything," Saitou growled, glaring at Enishi. "For your information, _genius_, there's only one Wu Heishin in all of Japan, and guess what? He's working at your museum."

Aoshi jumped in again before Enishi could open his mouth to protest:

"He fits the profile. Wu's been noticeably absent from China of late—roughly three years, which corresponds with when your Wu began working here."

"But—" Enishi began.

"Also," Aoshi said, completely ignoring Enishi, "your Wu's a Chinese National, living in Tokyo on a work visa that he renews without fail every time it's about to expire. He came over from China on a flight out of Shanghai, which also corresponds with the information you gave us."

"Therefore," Saitou cut in, voice poisonous, "_I_ didn't screw up—_you_ did. Your turn to explain yourself, Yukishiro."

Enishi's impression of a fish was starting to get disturbingly realistic.

Tokio appeared to take pity on him, because she sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Geez," she said to no one in particular. "Okay, look, let's just…okay. Enishi met Wu in Shanghai when he went there four years ago. We were doing some kind of exchange, and he needed to go because he's the only one of us at all proficient in Mandarin and Cantonese."

"Both?" Aoshi asked in obvious surprise.

"More Mandarin," Enishi answered, still stunned. "Only a little Cantonese, but enough to get by."

"Anyway, he meets Wu there," Tokio said.

"At a bar. The museum director invited me out for a drink once we'd concluded business, and he saw Wu, invited him over to our table and introduced us. We talked shop," Enishi said, sounding like he was in some kind of dream—or more appropriately, a nightmare. "He was interested in the museum business, he said."

"When Enishi got back from Shanghai, he mentioned Wu to us, but it was just in passing, so we didn't think anything of it."

"He called a month after I got back from Shanghai," Enishi said. "He kept up the contact too. And he really sounded like he knew what the hell he was talking about, you know?"

"How did he get hired?" Aoshi asked.

"He said he was coming to Japan on holiday and asked if it would be okay if he visited the museum," Enishi replied. "I said yeah, and he came by the day after he got into town. I introduced him to Akira and my sister and Tokio."

"And I hated him on sight," Tokio piped up, frowning fiercely at her angry-red knuckles.

"Why was that?" Kenshin inquired.

"He's oily," Tokio immediately replied, looking over at Kenshin. "He's full of crap and says what he thinks you want to hear. Worst of all, he's good at it."

"Very good," Enishi admitted. "I thought something was a little off, but he was so sincere—"

"Acted it," Tokio corrected.

"—that I didn't really pay attention to the uneasy sort of feeling I got around him." Enishi continued after nodding in agreement with Tokio's correction.

"And you didn't listen to me either," Tokio muttered, glaring at him.

"I thought you were just being a bitch," Enishi protested.

"Well thanks a lot!" Tokio shot back. "Geez Enishi, tell me what you really think about me!"

"Don't go ape-shit," Enishi snapped. "I'm telling you the truth. I thought you were just doing it to piss me off."

"I don't randomly hate people just to piss you off, stupid," Tokio snarled, "don't flatter yourself."

"Can we focus, if it isn't too much to ask?" Saitou interrupted impatiently. "I'd like to get this nightmare over with before the end of the year."

"Fine, fine," Enishi muttered, running a hand through his hair. "We ended up hiring him after our old head of Human Resources retired."

"How long was that after his visit?" Kenshin asked, forgetting that he didn't want to draw Enishi's attention if it was possible.

"It was while Wu was still in the country," Tokio said sourly, and the officers all exchanged suspicious looks.

"Well that's damn convenient," Aoshi said.

"It's _too_ damn convenient," Saitou muttered. "I don't believe in coincidences. What happened, why'd he retire?"

"Actually, our old Human Resources head was female," Enishi said. "And she'd been having some family problems for a while."

"What sorts of problems?" Aoshi asked.

Enishi shrugged. "She never told me." He looked over at Tokio. "She tell you?"

Tokio shook her head. "She just said something about her and her husband fighting a lot," she said. "She had to give me some kind of explanation," she added, "since she sprang it on me so suddenly."

Saitou's frown deepened.

"This doesn't smell right," he growled.

"You're thinking Wu bought her off, aren't you?" Kenshin asked, watching Saitou.

"Or threatened her," Saitou said, nodding. He looked down at Tokio, who was frowning at her knuckles. "Have you had problems since she left?"

"Not really," she replied, gently touching her knuckles. "More of our assistants've been totally brain dead, but I didn't think too much of it. Mostly I figured there weren't too many good people out there anymore."

"Good?" Kenshin asked.

"People who can walk and breathe at the same time," Tokio said dryly.

"People who graduated from college," Enishi qualified, rolling his eyes, "with degrees in history or anthropology or whatever, that kinda crap."

"What I still don't understand," Saitou said, eyeing Tokio, "is why you hired the man in the first place. And how you didn't know he was a wanted criminal."

"Well they don't plaster his face everywhere you know," Tokio replied defensively, not caring for the accusing look Saitou was giving her.

Kenshin and Aoshi exchanged uncomfortable looks.

"Uhm, actually," Kenshin said hesitantly, "we don't actually know what he looks like."

Enishi and Tokio stared at him in disbelief.

"Are you _shitting_ us?" Enishi finally asked, looking at Aoshi and Saitou. "_You_ don't even know what he looks like?"

"And you have the _gall_ to give us grief about not knowing who he was?" Tokio asked, raising her voice.

"Not knowing his face is no excuse for not knowing his name!" Saitou snapped.

"What kind of psychotic logic is that!" Tokio demanded. "Besides, you guys didn't say anything about his being a wanted criminal yesterday when I told you his name!"

"I don't know the damn list by heart, woman!"

"Now now," Kenshin began, stepping toward them.

"Well then don't act so high-and-mighty and give us crap for not knowing it either you ass!"

"Did you bother to do a goddamn background check on the man before you hired him!"

"Tokio-dono," Kenshin said, raising his voice a little.

"Of course I did!"

"Then you shouldn've hired him!"

"Saitou, we talked about this—!" Kenshin yelled, trying to be heard over the two people currently nose-to-nose and about five seconds away from coming to blows.

"His record was clean, ahou—I wouldn't have hired him if it had come up that he was a freaking criminal!"

"Yeah well you hired the bastard anyway!"

"You're such a jerk!" Tokio bellowed, hitting his shoulder with her right fist. "OW! Bleeding Christ!" she howled, holding her hand and doubling over.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Saitou demanded, grabbing her arm and pulling her upright, then taking hold of her wrist and looking over her hand.

"_You_," Tokio snarled back, but she hissed and winced when he gently prodded at her hand.

Saitou looked around.

"Where the hell is Soshi?" he asked.

Aoshi and Kenshin and Enishi shrugged in unison.

"He said he was going to go get ice for Tokio-san," Aoshi said. "Presumably, that's what he's doing."

"Well where the hell did he go, Antarctica?" Saitou irritably returned. "It's ice, for christssake, not a lost treasure."

"Forget it," Tokio grumbled. "I'll just tell Sae to get it."

"NO!" Aoshi and Kenshin yelled and Tokio flinched and watched them with wide eyes.

"What?" Tokio asked. "I'm just gonna call her."

"'Call'?" Kenshin parroted. "Like…on the phone?"

"Well, yeah," Tokio replied. "What'd you think I was talking about?"

"Uh…nothing," Kenshin returned, coughing. "Please continue, Tokio-dono."

Tokio sent him an odd look as she walked to Enishi's desk and picked up his phone. Kenshin smiled weakly; Aoshi sighed in relief; and Saitou rolled his eyes. Enishi sat back in his chair and seemed to decide that ignoring the outburst was the way to go.

"That little smirking bastard," Enishi muttered. "I'll fucking strangle him."

"You'll have to take a number," Tokio informed him, "I have first dibs."

"The hell you do," Enishi returned, frowning. "He used me!"

"So?" Tokio asked, raising an eyebrow. "I've detested him longer—Sae, it's me. Could you bring a bag of ice to Enishi's office for me? Oh? Okay then, that'll be fine. Thank—huh? No, Enishi-san's still alive. For now."

"Oh funny," Enishi said bitterly, and Tokio picked up a pen and threw it at him.

"Thank you Sae. 'Bye." Tokio hung up the phone and moved out of the way so that the pen Enishi threw back at her missed. "Your aim sucks," she said.

"Go to hell," Enishi replied, enunciating carefully.

"Already there," she returned, mimicking him.

"Is your secretary bringing the ice?" Saitou asked.

"No, Okita-san is," Tokio replied, sitting on the corner of Enishi's desk. "He was heading this way when I called."

"Get your ass off my desk," Enishi ordered.

"Make me," Tokio taunted, sending him a look that dared him to try.

Enishi narrowed his eyes and seemed to weigh his options.

"And get attacked by your _precious_ Inspector? No thanks," he said finally, sitting back in his chair. "But if your fat ass makes my desk collapse you're paying for a new one."

"No I won't, and my ass is _not_ fat, thank you very much," Tokio said with a sniff.

"Yeah whatever," Enishi muttered, rolling his eyes.

"You'd never believe they were adults, huh?" Aoshi observed, looking over at Kenshin.

"No way," Kenshin agreed, shaking his head.

Okita arrived with the ice and Tokio gratefully applied it to her throbbing knuckles.

"What took so long?" Saitou demanded, arms crossed over his chest and expression like thunder.

"Nothin'," Okita said a little too innocently, and Saitou's eyes narrowed.

"If you were fooling around with one of the secretaries—" he began.

"Excuse me, but I'm a _perfect_ gentleman, and I'll thank you not to impugn my honor like that in the future," Okita said with a self-important sniff.

Saitou snorted.

"Feh."

"You're just pissy 'cause you don't have any cigarettes on you," Okita accused.

Tokio raised an eyebrow.

"None?" she asked.

"He ran out last night and hasn't had a chance to buy more," Okita explained to her. "He turns into Uber-Asshole when he hasn't had a smoke in a few hours."

"It's impolite to discuss someone as if he wasn't present," Saitou bit out testily.

Tokio looked thoughtful.

"Huh," she said, tapping her chin with her left index finger. "No wonder you've been so charming this morning."

"Don't bait him," Aoshi advised. "It can get very ugly and unpleasant."

Enishi snorted.

"No way he beats Tokio on a bender," he drawled. "No one on the face of the planet is scarier."

"Wanna bet on that?" Okita asked casually.

"He'll cheat you blind," Aoshi said in warning.

"No he won't—you can't cheat on a bet like this one," Enishi said. "How much?"

"Hm…let's say…twenty-five hundred yen?"

"Only?" Tokio asked dryly, sending Enishi and Okita chilling looks they ignored.

"Deal," Enishi said and Okita smiled and nodded.

"You're on Yukishiro."

"Assistant Inspector?" Tokio asked politely, turning to look at Saitou with a huge smile on her face.

"What?" Saitou asked, voice gruff and unfriendly.

"Shoot them."

Saitou's eyes narrowed and he smirked at Okita and Enishi, who were looking very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"With pleasure, Acting Director."

"Run away!" Okita yelped, dashing out of the office with Enishi right behind him.

"Hm." Tokio pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I've never seen Enishi run that fast." She looked over at Saitou. "Think I should buy a gun?"

"No," Saitou replied. "Society's safer with you unarmed."

"Thanks for the endorsement," she muttered, frowning.

Enishi and Okita suddenly ran back into the office, and Tokio brightened.

"Yay you're back! Quick Saitou-san, shoot 'em before they run away again—"

"We're in trouble!" Enishi said frantically as he slammed the door shut and fell back against it.

The smile fell off Tokio's face.

"What happened? What's wrong?" she asked.

Enishi didn't get the chance to answer:

"TAKAGI TOKIO!" a male voice bellowed, and Tokio flinched so violently she almost fell off Enishi's desk.

She met Enishi's terrified, wide-eyed stare with one of her own, then both of them scrambled to get behind Enishi's desk. Tokio made it first, since she was closer, but Enishi was no slouch; he vaulted over his desk and landed on the floor behind it, and he and Tokio promptly began fighting over who was going to hide under the desk while Saitou, Kenshin, Aoshi, and Okita looked on, incredulous.

"It's my desk!" Enishi snarled.

"I was here first!" Tokio snarled back.

"Bullshit—I was here way before you!"

"I'm older!"

"TOKIO!" came the male voice again.

"Gah! Screw it, we'll share!" Tokio yelped. "And if you hurt my hand I'll kill you!"

"Shut up—shove over, damn it!"

"You shut up—and you shove over!"

"I need more space! I'm bigger than you!"

"It's not my fault you're a freak of nature!"

_Who in the seven hells **is** this woman?_ Saitou thought to himself. _And **what** has_ _she done with Chiisai?_

The door to Enishi's office flew open, and two figures stood in the doorway, one small and one large. The smaller of the two was almost pubescent of figure, wearing a very white pants suit with a black scarf around her neck and a stylish hat cocked over her head, and was obviously pissed. The larger, a man in jeans and a short sleeve shirt with a white bandana around his head, was solemn but also obviously upset, though not quite to the prospectively violent proportions of his female friend.

They looked around the office, and then the woman growled,

"Where is she?"

"Who?" Okita asked innocently.

"_Where is that goddamn woman_?" the woman—who suddenly sounded suspiciously manly—demanded in a bellow.

There was a loud bang from the direction of the desk that had all eyes going to it, and then Tokio's voice, muffled but clear, was heard:

"OW! Crap Enishi that hurt, you stupid jerk!"

"Takagi!" the woman (man?) yelled. "Get your sorry ass out here right now!"

There was a long pause, and then Tokio's head slowly came into view. She was rubbing the top of it, and her huge, dark eyes were huger than usual and begging for forgiveness and mercy.

"I love you?" she tried with a winning smile.

"Don't pull that crap on me!" the woman/man said, pointing accusingly at Tokio. "What the hell happened to my exhibit? Why is it ruined?"

Tokio sighed and finally stood up.

"Kamatari-chan—" she began.

"And why didn't you call me immediately!" Kamatari demanded, frenzied at this point.

"Because we knew you'd go ape-shit like you're doing now," Enishi said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Tokio smiled pleasantly, then hauled back and kicked him.

"SHIT!" he howled, and apparently slammed into the underside of the desk, because there was another loud bang and another very vocal curse from Enishi.

"Kamatari-chan," Tokio began again.

Kamatari bristled and began to interrupt again, but the large man put a hand on Kamatari's slim shoulder.

"Let Tokio-san explain," he said.

Kamatari's mouth screwed shut, expression accusing, but didn't say another word, and Tokio smiled in appreciation at the big man.

"Thank you Anji-san," she said, bowing.

"Less thanking, more explaining," Kamatari cut in impatiently, foot tapping and arms crossed.

Tokio inclined her head in acknowledgement of the demand.

"We were broken into night before last," she said, "and someone or several someones vandalized our Meiji exhibit."

"Was anything stolen?" Anji asked, concern on his face.

Tokio shook her head.

"No, everything's still here. Some of it was busted to hell, but we still have everything."

"Who did it?" Kamatari asked, frowning; the foot tapped faster.

Tokio watched them both with serious eyes, then said to Aoshi,

"Shinomori-san, please shut the door."

Aoshi nodded and did her bidding and Tokio took in a deep breath and then let it out, then flopped back into Enishi's chair.

"What I'm about to tell you never leaves this room, understood?" Kamatari, face no longer so annoyed at Tokio's serious tone, joined Anji in nodding yes. "While we aren't entirely, one-hundred percent sure yet, odds are good that two of our assistants did it, and one of our department heads helped."

"Wu," Anji said immediately, and Tokio's face took on a decidedly smug expression. She reached down, grabbed Enishi by the ear and yanked him out from under the desk.

"See?" she said, pulling him up onto his knees. "Even _Anji-san_, our resident Buddha, doesn't like him—_see_?"

"Let go you crazy wench!" Enishi snarled, yanking his ear out of her grip. "Christ Tokio, I think my ear's gonna turn purple!"

"Then it'll match the side of your face, now won't it?" she drawled.

"Oh ha ha ha," Enishi sarcastically returned, getting to his feet and rubbing his ear.

"Glad you enjoyed it—I got loads more," Tokio assured him.

"Get the hell out of my chair," Enishi snapped, and Tokio stuck her tongue out at him, but got up and let Enishi plop into his chair, glaring at her with so much hostility it was a wonder she didn't burst into flames.

"Well," Kamatari cut in, "are the police here to arrest that little bastard or what?"

"It's hard to arrest someone we can't find," Aoshi said, and Tokio looked over at Saitou, who sighed and nodded.

Tokio's shoulders slumped.

"Figures you guys'd turn me into a big fat liar," she muttered, sighing. "I'm gonna have to make crap up when I go see Akira-kun."

"Kiyosato-san's not here?" Anji asked, frowning in disbelief.

"Kiyosato-san is in the hospital," Tokio replied, and Kamatari and Anji sent her horrified looks.

"Oh gods he's dying!" Kamatari said.

"He is not," Enishi snapped. "Don't get so over-dramatic. Freakin' queen."

"I'll whack you," Kamatari warned, glaring in Enishi's direction.

"Bring it," Enishi dared. "You ain't nothin' without your scythe."

"'Queen'?" Okita repeated.

"'Scythe'?" Saitou and Aoshi echoed.

"Oro?" Kenshin volunteered.

Tokio groaned, plopped onto the floor and laid back, arm over her eyes.

"Let this be a bad dream!" she pleaded to no one in particular, then lifted her arm, looked around and saw them all watching her, then groaned again and replaced her arm. "Oh _gods_, you're all _still_ here."

"Tokio-chan," Kamatari said in exasperation. He walked over to where Tokio lay and squatted down next to her. "Oi, come on—what are we gonna do?"

Tokio sighed, then lifted her arm and used it to pillow her head.

"Once we get the glass cleaned up and the cameras and lights replac—" Tokio froze, eyes going wide, then leapt up as if she'd been lit of fire. "The lights!"

"What?" Enishi and the officers demanded in unison.

"I forgot to call the damn lighting company about the lights!" Tokio yelped, grabbing Enishi's phone. "Crap! How could I forget that?"

Enishi snorted.

"You forgot the security tapes yesterday," he pointed out, and she shot him a withering look.

"I'll kick you again," she threatened.

Enishi made a certain obscene gesture with a certain finger of his right hand, and Tokio dryly said,

"And you know exactly where you can shove that finger, Enishi."

"Tokio-san," Anji said, half exasperated and desperately trying not to laugh; Kamatari was openly snickering, Aoshi's lips were twitching furiously, Okita was doubled over and shaking with silent laughter, Kenshin was coughing to cover up his, and even Saitou looked vaguely amused.

"They're always like this," Anji explained the officers, unable to keep from smiling. "I suppose it must be…interesting…for you officers."

"'Interesting'," Saitou repeated. "Yeah, I guess you can call it that."

"Ow! Damn it Tokio!"

"I _told_ you I'd kick you again, stupid! Geez, I even _warned_ you this time and everything! _Gods_ you're pathetic."

"Very interesting," Aoshi agreed.

"Yup," the officers, Anji and Kamatari replied.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 6: Saké To Me:_

"Tokio-san's under a lot of stress right now," Okita said in a very dignified voice. "She needs to blow off steam or she'll blow up."

"I have Enishi's punching bag for that," Tokio replied.

"And Enishi," Saitou added wryly.

---

"You're not helping," Tokio said flatly.

"Who said anything about being helpful?" Saitou replied.

---

"You still haven't said what the winner gets," Tokio reminded Okita.

"Bragging rights," Okita decided. "You get to tell the gods and everyone that you drank Saitou Hajime of the MPD under the table."

"Assuming her liver survives," Kenshin muttered.

---

"I'm not as think as you drunk I am," she haughtily informed him, managing to look both incredibly snooty and incredibly wasted.

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"You aren't drunk, you're practically preserved," he muttered.

* * *

**Additional A/N:** So Hurricane Ernesto is being a jack off. Actually, I believe last reports put it at tropical storm status, but that's not the purpose of this note. This is to warn you all that, since Florida was, last I heard, in the path of the Cone of Death, the next chapter may be a tad behind. If it hits as a tropical storm, it probably won't throw me off too bad, but if it gets back up to hurricane status by the time it hits (Category 2 or higher), chances are good I will probably be quiet for a while. Many apologies; think of it as one of the (many) drawbacks of living in Flori-duh. I do. Which makes me start thinking about where I could move to…. 


	6. Saké To Me

**THE REPORTS OF IMPENDING DOOM WERE GREATLY EXAGGERATED.** Unless of course, meteorologists meant we'd be slowly drowned when they sounded the alarm. So we went into Extreme Panic Consumption Mode…and then it just rained a lot and we all got our hurricane-induced ulcers irritated for nothing. _God_, I need to get the hell out of Florida.

**_Anyway_….** I'd like to (again) thank **Priya-chan** for pointing out a rather embarrassing mistake I made last chapter, which I have since corrected. If you hadn't said something, m'dear, I would still look like a total ass, and I appreciate your preventing that. : ).

**Also: **Thanks for your patience. And that's all I'm gonna say…. ; ).

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Okita & Aoshi: yet again, more of a note of explanation than anything (maybe I should change the name of this section, since it could be considered false advertising and all…); historically, Okita didn't drink liquor. However, for this chapter to work, he can't be sober, so he's going to be consuming flavored drinks of the candy/fruit variety, since he supposedly liked candy. As for Aoshi, he doesn't drink either, because he "can't handle saké" (_Rurouni Kenshin_, Volume 18)…but he can't be sober either, so this is slightly before he decides to give up on it entirely. And yes, this is a shameless attempt to "c.y.a." my "a." Not that I think it'll work...

Kabuki-cho: a red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, it is the location of over three thousand bars (hostess and host bars among them), love hotels, shops, restaurants, nightclubs, and movie theaters, and is often called the "Sleepless Town." After WWII, there were plans to build a kabuki theater there and the name was changed to reflect that, but plans for the theater eventually fell through. The name, however, stuck. It's a big tourist spot, and also rather famous (or maybe that should be infamous?) for its yakuza and Chinese mafia population. Not bad neighborhood, per se, but you probably want to watch your stuff a little more closely than usual.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Six: Saké To Me_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_What_ was she doing here?

Tokio considered it a valid if kind of dumb (okay, _really_ dumb) question. It was valid because she did not make a habit of frequenting bars in the middle of Kabuki-cho, an area of Tokyo known for both its nightlife and its yakuza and Chinese mafia connections.

It was dumb because the answer had eight legs, wore policeman's black and happened to be standing with her in front of a dubious looking establishment proudly proclaiming its name in tear-inducing neon green.

"'The Gutter Ball'," she read slowly, squinting a little. "Huh. It's certainly…got an interesting name."

"Feh—wait 'til you see the inside," Okita assured her, and Tokio felt a sudden sense of foreboding.

"It's nicer than it looks, Tokio-dono," Kenshin assured her, apparently noticing her eyes darting around, looking for a suitable avenue of escape.

"Can we stop standing out here like a bunch of idiots and get in the damn place already?" Saitou snapped.

"You shouldn't a bought him the cigarettes," Okita muttered to Tokio. "Ever since he got 'em all he's been doin' is smokin'."

"I'd rather he be cranky with them than be cranky without them," Tokio replied. "At least then he'll smoke. Without them, he starts picking fights."

"He picks fights regardless."

"Well, yeah, but he's less inclined to actually finish them if he can smoke instead."

Pause.

"Point taken."

"Thank you."

Saitou apparently got tired of both being discussed as if he wasn't there, and standing outside of the bar when he could have been inside it, smoking happily, so he grabbed Tokio by the arm and dragged her forward.

"You wanted to come, now move your ass," he growled.

"I did not want to come," Tokio argued, not putting up much of a fight because she was rather fond of the heels she was wearing today, and trying to plant herself on the sidewalk would no doubt end very badly. "Okita-san and Himura-san asked me to come."

"You could have declined," Aoshi pointed out, and Tokio shot him a disgruntled look.

"I thought you were on my side," she grumbled.

"Shinomori isn't an idiot, woman," Saitou said, shoving her into the bar ahead of him. "He knows good sense when he sees it."

The first thing that greeted her was a thick cloud of cigarette smoke and the loud, drunken chatter of wasted professionals and under that, the surprisingly good sound quality of the equally surprisingly well-kept juke box in the corner, which looked circa 1960, if not earlier. Currently, the King was belting out his "Jailhouse Rock" and encouraging the general controlled chaos of the place.

Another feature of The Gutter Ball was that it was a three-alarm fire waiting to happen. Naturally, this aspect of the place was less endearing than the juke box.

There was…really, there was no other of putting it…_crap_ all over the walls. Pictures—black-and-white, color, sepia, in frames or just taped or tacked up—autographed photos of the famous and infamous, newspaper clippings, posters, old and new liquor advertisements. All of it covered the walls so that they were nonexistent, in layers upon layers, and Tokio decided she was going to have to keep an eye on Saitou tonight, just to ensure that he didn't accidentally light the place up.

It was packed with men—Tokio didn't see a single woman in the place—all of them in various states and stages of inebriation, though no one was dancing on tables.

Yet.

Saitou steered her to a table in the back.

"Sit here," he said, pulling a chair out for her.

"I don't like sitting with my back to the door," she protested.

"How unfortunate," he replied in a voice that told her how much he truly did not care.

Tokio glared at him, then plopped down into the chair with an irritated sigh.

Kenshin, Aoshi and Okita joined them. Kenshin and Okita sat on either side of Saitou, chairs turned slightly so they had a better view of the door. Aoshi took a seat next to Tokio.

"You don't mind sitting with your back to the door, Shinomori-san?" she asked, a little surprised; all four men were the cagey sort who liked to see what was going on at all times.

"One night won't kill me," Aoshi replied. He paused, then looked over at the three men facing them across the table. "I hope."

"Stop it," Okita ordered. "You know we watch the door."

"Until the liquor gets here," Aoshi agreed, nodding.

Despite herself, Tokio smiled faintly in amusement.

Going out to drink with the officers had been Okita's inspired idea as they'd sat around the conference room table eating lunch.

"You oughta kick back Tokio-san," Okita had advised.

"I don't have the luxury of kicking back, Okita-san," Tokio replied.

"Are you nuts? You, more than anyone else, _need_ to kick back."

"Oh this I _have_ to hear," Saitou said, turning his full attention to the conversation. "Explain how that works, Okita-kun."

"Tokio-san's under a lot of stress right now," Okita said in a very dignified voice. "She needs to blow off steam or she'll blow up."

"I have Enishi's punching bag for that," Tokio replied.

"And Enishi," Saitou added wryly.

Tokio sent him a flat look; he smirked in her direction, and she frowned at him.

"I'm serious," Okita said, and, in fact, he was; there was no joking in his tone or face. "You know what? You should go out drinkin' with us," he said, smiling as sudden inspiration struck.

Aoshi frowned.

"I doubt that'd fly with the higher ups," he said, and Okita rolled his eyes.

"Feh—like they're ever gonna find out."

"She's part of our case," Aoshi argued. "We're not supposed to fraternize with the case!"

"Well what the hell do you call this?" Okita shot back, gesturing to the table and the various containers on it.

"This one believes it's called 'lunch,' Okita," Kenshin said mildly, eyes dancing, and Okita glared at him while Tokio laughed into her lap.

"Oh shut up," Okita snapped at the red head, then glared at Aoshi. "We're eating lunch with Tokio-san—_that's_ fraternizing."

"Okay," Tokio soothed, "okay, everyone calm down. Okita-san, that's very sweet of you to offer, but Shinomori-san has a point. I don't think your commanding officers would be pleased."

Okita turned to Saitou, who was impatiently tapping his box of matches on the table top, frowning.

"You give a shit if Tokio-san goes out drinkin' with us?" he demanded.

"No." was the abrupt reply.

"See?" Okita said, gesturing to Saitou. "He doesn't care."

"Of course not," Kenshin said, rolling his eyes. "Saitou's out of cigarettes. The End of the World could happen right now and he wouldn't care unless the End of the World also happened to have a pack of smokes on it."

Tokio smiled, then cleared her throat when Okita bristled and opened his mouth to argue.

"Now now boys," she said, sounding very teacher-like, "behave. Okita-san, really, I appreciate the offer—"

"A night out might do you some good, though, Tokio-dono," Kenshin thoughtfully interrupted, and Okita's anger quickly dissipated when he realized he had someone in his corner.

"Yeah, see—even Himura thinks so," he said smugly.

"You say that like it should mean something," Saitou said, voice low and cold, and he suddenly seemed very interested in the conversation.

Tokio had a vision of Okita being wheeled out of the museum with Saitou's nightstick jammed into his forehead courtesy of that Gatotsu to the head he'd been threatening Okita with, and decided the museum had been in the news more than enough already.

"Okay, everyone stop," Tokio ordered, standing. "First, we need to restore some normalcy to the situation. Saitou-san, what kind of cigarettes do you smoke?"

He frowned at her.

"What brand?" he clarified.

"Yes."

"I honestly don't care at this point, as long it's a cigarette."

"Fine then, that'll make it much easier," she said, picking up the phone and dialing Sae's extension. "Sae, do me a favor and get a pack of cigarettes for Saitou-san. Use the museum funds—no, Enishi-san won't mind, because Enishi-san isn't going to hear about it, right? Very good. And the brand isn't important. All right, thank you."

She hung up the phone and looked over at Saitou.

"You'll have your cigarettes in half an hour. Is that all right?"

"You're a goddess," Okita said. "Now we definitely have to take you out for getting Captain Miserable his cigarettes."

Tokio raised an eyebrow.

"'Captain Miserable'?" she asked, while Saitou sent Okita a withering look that probably would have killed him if it had been possible. Or maybe maimed him. Just a little.

So Okita had explained Saitou's nickname while Saitou sent him menacing looks, until Tokio noticed and quickly changed the subject to one that wasn't going to make the museum end up on the six o'clock news with the headline "Officer Killed By Nightstick Through Skull."

At least, that's what she thought, anyway.

They'd argued about her going out drinking with the officers until Saitou's ill humor had provoked him into ordering them all to shut the hell up.

"Saitou-san," Tokio said, a hint of mild reproach in her voice, "really now. If you keep being rude, I won't give you the cigarettes."

"GAH!" Okita looked like he was having a heart attack. "No! BAD idea! Tokio-san are you out of your mind? You don't threaten Saitou's cigs unless you have a death wish!"

"I stand by my threat," Tokio said calmly.

"Maybe she's a little crazy," Aoshi mused.

"It would certainly explain her penchant for threatening Saitou," Kenshin agreed.

"But still," Okita protested. "Even if she is a freakin' lunatic—it's just not safe!"

Tokio looked over at Saitou.

"Do they do this a lot?" she asked.

"All the time," he replied with a lazy look in her direction.

Tokio let out a rueful sigh and turned her attention back to the other officers.

"Excuse me children," she said dryly, "while I'm flattered you find me such an interesting topic of discussion, it's very rude to talk about me as if I wasn't here."

"Sorry," the men chorused, and Tokio had to fight not to laugh, because they _did_ look and sound like repentant, castigated children.

"You're forgiven," she said, miraculously managing to keep the urge to laugh down.

"So," Okita said, "does that mean you'll go out drinkin' with us?"

"Not this again," Tokio said wearily. "Okita-san, really—this is what started the fight in the first place."

"Aw, we're just tryin' a be nice," he replied. He nudged Kenshin. "Right Himura?"

"Right," Kenshin immediately said. "Especially since you bought Saitou his cigarettes and saved us from having to deal with his bad temper the rest of the day."

"We'd give you a medal, but they haven't got one yet," Okita added. "I've been tryin' to get one made though."

"Just for dealing with Saitou-san?" Tokio asked, amused.

"Yeah—it's a public service."

"Okita," Saitou growled, "I _will_ hurt you, and damn the witnesses."

"Okay!" Tokio quickly said. "Okay. I'll go out drinking with you all. Now can we please move on?"

"Yeah?" Okita asked with a surprised grin.

"Yes." Tokio replied with a small smile.

"Aw, you're a good sport Tokio-san," Okita said. "We'll take you to the best place, right guys?"

Aoshi—who still did not look convinced that this was a good idea—and Kenshin—who was smiling—nodded. Okita sent Saitou a narrow look.

"Oi, Captain Miserable—"

"That tears it," Saitou said, abruptly standing, and Okita yelped.

"No one is killing anyone!" Tokio snapped, latching onto Saitou's arm. "Saitou-san, we do not need any more bad press!"

"You mean you're worried about the press?" Okita incredulously demanded from behind Aoshi's chair, where he was cowering with as much dignity as possible.

Aoshi, meanwhile, had decided that Okita was on his own, and he abruptly wheeled out of the way, leaving Okita open and vulnerable.

"You're a disgrace," Aoshi said.

"And _you've_ never gotten into a fist fight with Saitou when he hasn't had a smoke in sixteen hours." Okita shot back.

Aoshi paused, thoughtful.

"True," he said finally. "But you're still a disgrace."

Okita sent him a resentful look.

"Lucky ignorant bastard," he muttered, and Aoshi "accidentally" rolled over Okita's foot.

"I'll thank you to keep the speculations about the circumstances of my birth polite," Aoshi said dryly.

"You ran over my foot on purpose you son of a bitch!" Okita yelled, clutching his foot and glaring in Aoshi's direction.

"It's not my fault you didn't use your legs, Okita," Aoshi calmly returned.

Things were starting to look ugly, so Tokio let go of Saitou's arm and scrambled onto the table top to grab Okita by the tie before he decided to punch Aoshi in the nose, which was the direction things were leaning.

"All right, time out," Tokio announced. "Both of you are going to take little breaks from each other, okay? Shinomori-san, why don't you and Himura-san finish up with the security guards?"

Aoshi looked quite amused.

"Are you sure you want to leave Okita with Saitou-san?" he pointed out, and Tokio paused, remembering how Aoshi and Okita's argument had started.

"All right, new plan," Tokio announced. "Okita-san, why don't _you_ and Himura-san finish up with the security guards?"

"That'll be fine, won't it Okita?" Kenshin hurriedly said, standing.

"I guess," Okita grumbled.

Tokio smiled and let go of his tie and sat back on her heels.

"Thank you," she said demurely, and Okita sent her a half-grin as he put himself back into order.

"You're welcome Tokio-san." Then, he went rigid and sent her a sharp salute. "We won't disappoint you Boss Lady."

"Oh I'm very confident in you two," Tokio assured, amused.

Okita and Kenshin left the room (Okita was limping), and Tokio sighed and scratched her head, frowning.

"Well, that's one scandal avoided," she said wearily.

"You have some very odd habits, Tokio," Saitou drawled, and she looked over her shoulder to find him once more seated and watching her with a vaguely amused look on his face.

"Such as?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"Such as your penchant for sitting on tables," Saitou returned, steepling his fingers.

She rolled her eyes but got down off the table and brushed imaginary dust off her beige slacks and jacket.

"So what are we going to do while Okita and Himura take care of the security guards?" Aoshi asked.

"We'll interview the rest of the department heads and their secretaries," Saitou decided. "We can't get into Wu's office until we get the search warrant, and that probably won't happen until tomorrow."

"I could just let you guys in, you know," Tokio said.

"Oh I'm fully aware of that," Saitou replied. "And under different circumstances I'd take you up on it, but the Superintendent General wants us to go by the books on this one—he doesn't want Wu getting off on a technicality."

"Neither do you, I bet," Aoshi added, and Tokio frowned.

"No," she admitted, then sighed. "Oh well. I guess you'll come rip his office apart tomorrow then."

"With pleasure," Saitou said with a smirk.

"How's your end coming along?" Aoshi inquired, and Tokio groaned.

"Don't ask," she advised. "Just know that I never want to have to talk to the lighting company ever again in my life."

"They giving you a hard time?" Saitou asked.

"No, they're idiots, which is worse," Tokio replied. "Stupid people are more irritating than difficult people."

"No way," Aoshi scoffed. "Difficult people are more irritating, Tokio-san."

"Stupid people," Tokio insisted.

"Difficult," Aoshi persisted.

Tokio shook her head. "Stupid."

"Flip a coin," Saitou suggested idly, tapping his match box against the table top again.

"You're not helping," Tokio said flatly.

"Who said anything about helping?" Saitou replied.

"Which do you think it is, Saitou-san—difficult people or stupid people?" Aoshi asked.

"People," Saitou said.

Aoshi waited for more. When nothing else came, he asked,

"Just people?"

"People are the most irritating kind of people," Saitou affirmed with a slight nod.

There was a long pause, and then Tokio thoughtfully said,

"Hm. You have a point, Saitou-san."

"I usually do," Saitou lazily remarked, then rose. "Let's get to work Shinomori."

Aoshi, who appeared to have decided that not asking any more questions was best, also rose.

"Thank you again for lunch Tokio-san," he said with a bow.

Tokio smiled and returned it.

"You're welcome, even though I already told you that you don't have to thank me. Feeding you all is the least I can do." she said.

"Regardless," Aoshi said.

"Let's go Shinomori," Saitou said impatiently, and Aoshi bowed his head to Tokio one last time and walked towards where Saitou stood by the door.

"I'll let you know when your cigarettes get here Saitou-san," Tokio said, turning to watch them leave.

Saitou nodded.

"Fine," he said. Aoshi left the room and Saitou waited until he was reasonably sure Aoshi was out of earshot, then smiled faintly at Tokio, who was immediately suspicious.

"By the way Acting Director," he said, and his voice dropped several octaves, "thanks for the free show."

Tokio stared at him as if he'd lost his mind, until she remembered that she'd been up on the table top, on her knees, and she'd been facing _away_ from Saitou—

Oh. Crap.

Tokio promptly flushed when she realized she'd given Saitou an excellent view of her ass, and he chuckled and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"My life," she'd announced to the empty room after a long silence, "is so totally not fair."

The rest of the day had been less exciting and far less amusing, and by the time the officers had come to collect her for their night out, she was ready for a few beers. Actually, she was ready for a few beers, and any other liquor that was available.

Which was why she hadn't asked too many questions about where they were going. And when Tokio looked around the bar and caught sight of two extremely ugly Noh masks hanging on the wall, leering at the room at large, she thought she probably should have asked.

"What the hell is that?" she asked.

"What?" Aoshi asked.

"_That_," Tokio said, pointing to the Noh masks and wondering how anyone could have ignored two such truly hideous pieces of painted wood. Then again, maybe the booze helped with that.

Aoshi and the other officers leaned back and over the table respectively, and looked over at what she was pointing at.

"Oh that," Aoshi said. "They're Noh masks."

"I'd a thought you would a known that Tokio-san," Okita chided mildly.

Tokio sent him an incredulous look. Okita noticed:

"What?" he asked, and he was entirely serious.

"Nothing," she said finally, deciding it was safer not to ask.

Saitou stuck a cigarette in his mouth, pulled out his matches and took one, struck it against the side of his match box and lit the end of his cigarette. He shook out the match, tossed it in the ash tray in the center of the table, then leaned back, took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew the smoke out, looking very pleased with himself.

"Shinomori, if you'll do the honors," he said, sounding almost pleasant for the first time all day, and Aoshi nodded, then looked over at Tokio.

"What would you like Tokio-san?" he asked politely.

"What have they got?" Tokio asked, handing her purse to Kenshin, who hung it on the back of his chair, away from sticky fingers.

"Everything," Aoshi replied.

Tokio smiled up at him.

"'Everything' sounds just fine Shinomori-san," she said pleasantly.

There was a pause, and then Saitou chuckled.

"You heard the lady," he said dryly.

Aoshi looked dubious, but he left the table regardless to give the bartender their drink order.

"You a drinker Tokio-san?" Okita asked.

Tokio shrugged. "No more than anyone else," she answered.

Saitou looked amused, but offered nothing to the conversation, seemingly content to sit and smoke.

"Like anything in particular?" Okita asked conversationally.

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Tokio said, smiling faintly. "I have a particular fondness for saké."

Okita's eyebrows rose and he glanced over at Saitou, who was watching Tokio with a faint smile on his face.

"Is that right?" Okita asked, with a decidedly evil grin appearing on his face. "I bet Saitou can drink more than you."

Tokio raised an eyebrow.

"_Puh-lease_," she drawled. "I learned how to drink saké from my father, and no one puts away more saké than him."

"Oh this one doubts that, Tokio-dono," Kenshin piped up. "This one knows a man who can drink saké twenty-fours a day and never look the slightest bit tipsy."

"We aren't talkin' about not gettin' tipsy, Himura," Okita said. "We're talkin' about who can put away more saké—Saitou or Tokio-san."

"What's the wager?" Tokio asked.

"No wager, really," Okita replied, his grin widening. "Just a friendly little contest."

"Okita," Kenshin said, frowning. "I don't think this is a good idea—"

"Oh stop," Okita ordered. "We're here—what's the worst that could happen?"

"Oh _why_ did you say that?" Kenshin murmured, eyes closed and a wince on his face.

Okita rolled his eyes.

"You need to lighten up, Himura," he said. "If Saitou's the most depressing man in the MPD, you're a step below him. Hell, a half-step."

"Okita, nothing good can come from Tokio-dono getting drunk," Kenshin returned.

"Sure there can—she'll be drunk," Okita replied. "It'll help her obliterate the memory of today from her mind."

"Here here!" Tokio said, and Okita sent Kenshin a pointed look.

"You still haven't said what the winner gets," Tokio reminded Okita.

"Bragging rights," Okita decided. "You get to tell the gods and everyone that you drank Saitou Hajime of the MPD under the table."

"Assuming her liver survives," Kenshin muttered.

Tokio considered him, lips pursed, then slid her gaze over to Saitou, who was full-on grinning at her.

"All right," she said, with a smirk. "You're on."

Okita whooped and slapped the table top with a palm of his hand; Kenshin groaned and hid his face in his hands.

"You have no idea what you're doing, Chiisai," Saitou said.

Tokio twitched a little, and sent him a brittle smile.

"You're going down Assistant Inspector," she promised.

He didn't reply—the devious twinkle in his eyes was answer enough.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Four hours later, Tokio knew she'd made a grievous mistake.

Oh she'd managed to keep up with Saitou—she _thought_; after the fifth glass things started to get hazy—and so far she hadn't passed out or thrown up or anything like that.

But she couldn't quite move.

Well, she could move, but she couldn't get up the energy to do it. Unless it involved drinking more saké, of course. Then she could move just fine.

Saitou was equally immobile, but he wasn't leaning on the table top for support like she was. He was sitting back in his chair, and Tokio couldn't say so with absolute certainty, but she was reasonably sure that the only reason he was still upright was because he was leaning back against the chair back.

As for the others…well…they were totally trashed.

Kenshin was the only mildly sober one of the group, and he was smiling and hiccupping. Okita was dead drunk, having consumed several martinis of varied flavors, and Aoshi was very near it.

"How y' doin' Shin'mori-san?" Tokio inquired, her words a little slurred as Saitou poured her another glass.

"I'm…I'm fine," Aoshi assured, blinking his eyes in a rather exaggerated manner, as if he'd just discovered they could do that.

"He has absolutely no alcohol tolerance," Saitou said, and Tokio resented the fact that his words weren't the least little bit slurred. "Half a glass knocks him on his ass. A full one lays him out cold."

"So why's he drink it then?" Tokio asked, carefully bringing her glass to her mouth so she wouldn't spill any.

"Hell if I know," Saitou replied, filling his own glass. "Ask him, if you care so much."

"Fine," Tokio replied haughtily, "I will." She slumped over in Aoshi's direction and nudged him. Or tried to. It took three tries before she managed to bump his arm with her elbow.

"Oi, Shin'mori-san," she said. "How come you drink saké if it knocks y' on yur ass?"

Aoshi took the answering of this question very seriously, if the look of intense concentration was any indication. His brow furrowed and he focused his narrowed gaze on the table top while he pondered this query. Tokio watched him, waiting. After a long while, Aoshi slumped forward and Tokio observed him for a moment, lips pursed, then looked back over at Saitou.

"He didn' say," she remarked.

"He's drunk," Saitou said, as if in explanation.

Tokio smirked. "'R you?" she asked, and he smiled faintly.

"Maybe," he replied. "I know that _you_ are—I can barely understand what you're saying."

Tokio stuck her tongue out at him, then knocked back her glass and held it out to him. He raised an eyebrow but poured her another anyway.

"Pace yourself Chiisai," he advised.

"I'm _fine_," she announced. "You shou' worry 'bout _you_, Saitou-san."

He snorted and sipped at his drink.

"You're a piece of work," he said, tone amused. "I bet you're seeing two of me, but you still manage to remember to call me 'Saitou-san'."

"Well, wha' else am I gonna call y'? I never heard yur firs' name," she informed him and he looked surprised.

"That's impossible," he said finally. "I know I told you my name when we met."

"Uh-uh," Tokio informed him. "Y' jus' said y' were Lieutenant Saitou."

"Bullshit," he replied. "How do _I_ know _your_ first name?"

"'Cause I tol' you—_duh_," she replied, knocking back half of her drink.

"I told you to pace yourself," Saitou said, frowning now.

"I tol' you t' worry 'bout you," she shot back.

"I told you my name, damn it," he insisted.

"Nuh-uh," was the very adult reply from the very drunk woman in front of him.

"You're drunk—how would you remember whether I told you or not?" he demanded.

"I'm not as think as you drunk I am," she haughtily informed him, managing to look both incredibly snooty and incredibly wasted.

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"You're not drunk, you're practically preserved," he muttered.

"Am not," Tokio returned, then proved him right when she nearly slumped off the edge of the table. She caught herself—he was impressed that she was as quick as she was, being drunk and all—and smiled at him. "Almos' los' m' drink."

He watched her for a moment, then decided this had gone far enough. Besides, he was starting to feel slow and off-balance and in Kabuki-cho, it was best not to leave a bar too drunk.

"Okay Chiisai," he said. "This is last call."

Tokio frowned at him.

"But we're not finished yet," she protested.

"Oh yes we are," he replied. "So finish your glass."

"One more," she said.

"No."

"Aw! Come on!"

"No."

She pouted. "Please Saitou-san?" she wheedled, doing her best to look as young and pity-worthy as possible. It probably would have worked too, if her eyes hadn't been so unfocused and her face hadn't been so flushed.

"No."

Now she was frowning at him, resentment written all over her face.

"Knew I shou'a been the one pourin'," she muttered.

She finished her glass and he finished his, and then he looked around and took stock of his fellow officers. Okita had joined Aoshi; both men were face down on the table, out cold. Kenshin was dozing, mumbling the occasional "Oro" between other indecipherable words. Or sounds. Saitou wasn't sure.

He spied her purse and grabbed it and held it out to her.

"Come on," he said. "I'll walk you to the train."

She eyed her purse, then him.

"One more glass?" she tried, holding up one finger as she weaved a little to the right; she caught herself before she leaned too far over and righted herself.

"No."

Tokio sighed, then reached up and took her purse from him.

"Kill-joy," she muttered.

Saitou nudged Kenshin, who came awake like a scalded cat, though he was kind enough to refrain from screeching like one.

"I'm walking Tokio to the train," he said. "Then I'm going home. Make sure these two find their way home."

"Who?" Kenshin asked, looking very disoriented and perplexed by his surroundings.

Saitou sighed.

"We're leaving," he said with exaggerated slowness. "Make sure the lightweights get home."

"Oh." Kenshin's gaze focused and he did a pretty good impression of Aoshi discovering that he could blink his eyes. "Right."

"Hi Himura-san," Tokio said cheerfully as Saitou slowly got to his feet, careful to make sure he found his equilibrium before he moved again.

Kenshin looked over at her, expression blank for a moment, then smiled when he realized who she was.

"Ah, Tokio-dono!" he said happily. "How's you liver?"

"I dunno," Tokio admitted, sounding rather mystified.

"You should find out," Kenshin advised with an authoritative nod.

"Y'know somethin'? I think I will," Tokio agreed as Saitou reached her side.

"Say good-night," he said, reaching down and helping her up, knowing there was no way she'd be able to get up on her own—not as totally gone as she was.

"G'night Himura-san," Tokio said with a wave.

"'Bye Tokio-dono—find out how your liver's doing!"

"I will!"

Saitou paid the bill—they'd forgotten to designate who was going to pay for tonight, and since everyone else was so out of it he figured it fell to him—and then he and Tokio left The Gutter Ball and started walking towards the train station.

He immediately felt less off-balance when he got out into the night air, but it didn't seem to be having much of an effect on Tokio; he had to pretty much hold her up while they walked.

"I told you you didn't know what you were getting yourself into," he said.

"I'm still standin'," she protested, leaning her head against him.

"Barely," he muttered.

They walked in silence for a while, and then Tokio said,

"So wha's yur firs' name?"

"Hm?"

"Yur firs' name—wha' is it? Y' didn' tell me."

"Hajime."

"Oh that's a nice name," she said, and he snorted in amusement.

"Thank you Chiisai."

"Y' welcome." Pause. "An' don' call me that."

"I like calling you that," he returned sweetly.

"Yeah, 'cause you're evil," Tokio muttered, and Saitou chuckled.

"Chiisai, that's very unfair of you," he chided. "I'm being very nice and walking you to the train."

"You're evil," she insisted. "You call me 'Chiisai' even though you _know_ I hate it, an' you hum that song I hate—"

"I could sing it instead if you preferred," he offered.

"No thank you," she flatly returned, and he laughed lowly.

She sighed.

"Why d' you like torturing me?" she asked glumly.

"Because it's so easy to do," he replied, and she pinched him.

"Evil," she shot back.

He, in turn, pinched her right back, and she let out a yelp.

"Ow! That hurt!"

"No kidding," he said. "Don't pinch me again."

She muttered under her breath, then sighed and tugged on the sleeve of the arm looped around her shoulders.

"Saitou-san?"

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry I pinched you."

"Apology accepted."

"But y' deserved it, y' know. Y' were bein' a jerk."

He snorted in amusement.

They walked in silence a few blocks more, and then Tokio tugged on his sleeve again.

"Saitou-san?"

"Hm?"

"Where we goin'?"

"The train station."

"Oh." A pause. "Is it far?"

"Sort of."

Another long pause.

"I don't feel so dizzy anymore," she remarked.

"Really? Because you don't seem any steadier."

"Why aren't _you_ walkin' all weird?" she demanded.

"Because I have very good tolerance."

"Humph." She shifted her head against him so she could look up at him. "Did I win or did you?"

"Tie," Saitou lied; he'd had three glasses more than she had before he'd stopped Okita's insane little contest.

She frowned, then sighed. "I guess that's okay," she mumbled.

"I'm surprised you're still as coherent as you are," he remarked. "You're a lot smaller than I am."

"I'm not a midget Saitou-san."

He smiled.

"No, but you're five one. I'm over six one. That's a big difference, Chiisai."

She let out a sound of extreme exasperation.

"You're never gonna stop calling me that, are you?"

"Never," he agreed, and she groaned.

"_Why_ do I like you?"

"I'm entertaining," he replied. "And you're a masochist," he added as an afterthought.

"Must be," she muttered.

It took him a few minutes to realize she'd said "like," and he wondered at the word choice.

"So," he said conversationally, "you 'like' me, eh?"

"Yeah—dunno why, since you're so mean t' me all the time."

"I am not," he said, offended.

"Are too."

"The hell I am," he shot back. "I'm making sure you get home all right. If I was trying to be an asshole, you think I'd go to the trouble?"

"I dunno," she admitted, and he sent her a resentful look for a moment before he decided he'd have to address her perception of him when they were both sober, because if he tried to do it now, they'd likely as not get into a fight.

"So on a scale of one to ten," he said, because he was also more interested in her "liking" him than in her perception of him, "how much do you like me?"

She looked thoughtful.

"A lot," she decided at long last.

"Pick a number Chiisai," he instructed, pretending patience he did not have.

"Like…I dunno. A lot."

He rolled his eyes; _of_ _course_ he'd have to walk her through this.

"Like eight?"

"More."

"Nine?"

"More."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Ten?"

"More."

"It was on a scale of one to ten, Tokio."

"I said it was a lot," she reminded him, and despite himself he had to smile.

"This is true."

They fell into silence again, and then Tokio asked, voice hesitant,

"Do you…like me too, Saitou-san?"

"Are we in high school, Tokio?" he asked dryly, and she rolled her eyes, then tripped and would have fallen if he hadn't had an arm around her.

"Oh crap," she said, looking down at her shoes. "I think I ruined them. And I really liked these too."

"I think it's safer if you don't walk anymore," he said.

"So how'm I gonna get to the tra—" she began.

"Hop on," he said, turning around and gesturing to his back with his thumb.

Tokio let out a snort of laughter.

"No way," she said.

"Come on woman I don't have all night," he said. "At the rate we're going we'll be just in time for the train to shut down."

She watched him, then sighed and stepped toward him.

"Okay," she relented.

Ten minutes later the train station was in sight, and Tokio had her head on Saitou's left shoulder, watching him, her arms also draped over his shoulders. He was holding her thighs and her heels were dangling off the fingers of his right hand and he was trying not to be too bothered by her gaze, though as the minutes wore on it got harder to ignore.

"Saitou-san?"

"Hm?"

"You never answered my question."

"Which question?"

"Do you like me?"

He didn't say anything for several minutes.

"Yes," he returned finally.

"A lot?"

The surprised delight in her voice made him smile faintly.

"Yes."

"How much?"

"A lot."

"Really?"

"I don't make a habit of repeating myself, Tokio."

"I just wanted to make sure," she was quick to explain. A pause. "You really like me, Saitou-san?"

Her voice was very small and hopeful, and for the first time in two days, Saitou didn't feel off-balance around her—the Chiisai he knew was back.

"Yes Tokio."

She didn't appear to have a response for that, and they continued onto the station in silence.

He took care of their tickets, despite her protest that she could pay for her own, and then they made their way to the platform to await the train—the last one of the night, Saitou learned, and was extremely glad he'd insisted on carrying her.

Upon reaching the platform, he set her heels down, then her, and held her steady as she got into them.

"Thank you," she said quietly to her heels.

"You're welcome," he said, amused.

She fidgeted, fingers tangling with the strap of her purse. He reached out and untangled the nervous digits from the strap.

"As a friend?" she blurted all of a sudden, looking up at him with her large eyes larger than usual, and he paused, thrown off.

"I'm sorry?" he asked after they'd stared at each other in silence for several minutes.

"Do you like me as a friend?" she qualified, looking very nervous and unsure and so very cute—Saitou raised an eyebrow at that last one. Boy, he hadn't thought he was _that_ drunk….

"Yes."

He watched a strange expression come over her face, and she lowered her gaze to his chest.

"Oh," she said quietly.

He titled his head to one side and considered her. After a moment, she drew in a deep breath and then raised her eyes to meet his. She plastered a brilliant, brittle smile onto her face.

"Thanks for helping me tonight."

He nodded, waiting for…well, whatever came next.

Turned out he didn't have a long wait.

"YOU JERK!" she shouted suddenly, furiously, at him, and he flinched, taken aback by the abrupt attack.

"What?" he asked, bewildered, then jumped back when she whipped her purse off her arm and swung it at him. "Tokio! What the hell are you doing!"

"You're a miserable asshole Saitou Hajime!" she yelled, swinging again.

"What the hell did I do?" he demanded, dodging another swing that came dangerously close to connecting.

"I _hate_ you!"

"_But what did I do_?" he bellowed, and that's when she whacked him in the face with her purse. "_Fuck_!"

Saitou held his nose and waited for the colors exploding behind his eyes to stop. His eyes were watering and while he was pretty sure she hadn't broken his nose, he was equally sure he wouldn't be breathing through it any time soon.

A sniffle made him crack his eyes open, and he found Tokio rubbing her eyes.

"What are you crying about?" he snapped, voice muffled. "You almost broke my nose!"

"I thought you liked me," she said pitifully, voice thick with tears.

"I did until a few seconds ago," he muttered.

"You said you did," she said, ignoring him. "I thought you liked me like I liked you."

"What are you blubbering about?" he demanded, irritated and hurting and wishing he had more saké.

She sniffled again, loudly, then sent him a watery, resentful look.

"You lied," she accused.

"You didn't ask the right question!" he bellowed back.

"I asked if you liked me as a friend!"

"And I do!"

"See!"

"But you didn't ask if I thought you were attractive, now did you!" he yelled, and she stared at him, surprised.

"Do you?" she asked after a pause.

"Before you tried to kill me, the answer was yes," he said bitterly, gingerly feeling his nose.

She watched him for several seconds with wide, sad eyes, then tentatively made her way over to him. He watched her warily, ready to tackle her if she made any sort of move that he didn't like. Instead she leaned up and softly kissed his cheek.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and he found he was too surprised to move.

"It's okay," he said finally when he found his voice. "It doesn't actually hurt that much." She reached up and pushed against the side of his nose. "Shit!" he roared. "What the hell was that for?"

She sent him a contrite look, and he sighed and groaned.

"Stop with the kicked puppy look," he said wearily.

"Sorry."

"And stop apologizing."

"Sor—" A withering look from him had her swallowing the rest of the word.

They watched each other in silence for several minutes, and then Tokio looked down at her shoes. He watched her for a long time, wondering lots of things, among them how long he had before the train arrived to fix things, and exactly how he was going to do that.

"Does your nose still hurt?" she asked finally.

"It's at a dull throb now," he dryly replied. A pause. "I didn't mean to give you the wrong idea, Tokio."

"I know," she said quickly, gaze flickering up to meet his before going back to her shoes. "I overreacted, that's all."

_To understate in **massive** proportions_, Saitou thought sardonically.

She looked up at him through her bangs.

"How mad are you?" she asked.

"I'm not mad."

She sent him an "I'm-drunk-not-dumb" look.

"I'm not," he insisted. "I'm irritated. There's a difference."

"Okay," she said, then shyly raised her head to meet his gaze. "You really think I'm attractive?"

"When you aren't swinging purses at me I think you're very attractive."

She smiled, embarrassed and pleased and very cute again.

"I think you are too," she admitted shyly. She frowned. "When you aren't being such a jerk."

"I'll try to remember that," he said.

They watched each other in silence; far off, he heard a roar that was steadily getting closer, and knew the train was nearing.

Once again, Tokio ended the little stalemate, and once again, she threw him for a loop: she abruptly moved closer, leaned up and kissed him.

Saitou was used to making the first move—he had to, because most women found him too intimidating to pursue. He'd never particularly minded, because it suited him just fine. It was sort of like hunting.

He'd assumed the same would be true of Tokio. She was a hard nut to crack, though. She baffled him, because none of his usual tactics worked. He'd had to resort to teasing to get a rise out of her, and while it wasn't ideal, it had at least gotten him on her radar, which was half the battle.

But he'd been pretty well stuck for some time now. She was careful never to reveal much about herself, unless it was work-related, and his earliest attempts at wheedling more information out of her had garnered him nothing of use, aside from learning she was extremely clever and quick-witted. Eventually, he'd stopped trying, because if there was one thing that drove him crazy it was stupidity, and continuing on in that vein—which was fruitless at best and maddening at worst—was fantastically stupid. So he'd settled for their daily ten to fifteen minutes of bantering and bided his time, trying to figure out exactly how he was going to proceed.

In the beginning, he hadn't been exactly sure whether she was interested or not, and so she'd been delegated to the category of (his only) female friend. It wasn't until a couple years had passed that it dawned on him that the shtick wasn't just shtick, upon which he'd begun his plotting.

Which had gotten him nowhere.

Imagine: something as simple as asking her out for a drink, and it had never occurred to him. He felt really dumb for not thinking of it.

He also decided he was going to have to pay Okita back for this somehow—maybe he'd take the man to a baseball game, even though Saitou didn't really care for the sport himself….

It took him a couple of seconds to recover and regroup but he made up for it once he'd regained his bearings. He inched her closer and leaned down a little for her benefit, and she seemed to appreciate his thoughtfulness, if her wrapping her arms around his neck was any indication.

She was warm and tasted like saké. Or maybe that was him; it was hard to tell. She also smelled like cigarette smoke and…laundry?

_I'm losing my mind_, he decided. Her nose bumping into his had him flinching, his attention narrowing to his still-tender beak, and he grabbed her by the hair to hold her still.

Hey. Whatever worked, right?

Just around the time he thought maybe they should come up for air, he heard someone cough, very loudly, nearby. With a frown, Saitou looked up and got ready to tell whoever it was to mind his own fucking business, and discovered that the train had arrived, and there was man in uniform watching him with a very polite expression on his face.

"Excuse me sir," he said, voice even and face betraying nothing. "Will you and the lady be taking this train?"

"Yes," Saitou said after a moment, then looked down at Tokio, who was looking a little thrown off. "Train's here."

"Oh," she said. She stepped away from him and picked up the purse she'd let fall to the ground while they'd been…occupied. "Okay."

They walked onto the train, past the man, who never said a word, and sat down; tonight the train was mostly empty…aside from the handful of people watching them. Obviously, the man wasn't the only one who'd noticed they'd found a way to pass the time.

Saitou sat back, crossed his legs and glared at them all, daring one of them—any of them—to say a word. They all quickly found something else to look at, and then the doors slid shut and music played over the PA system and the next stops were announced, and then the train slid out of Shinjuku Station.

Neither said anything for a long time. Then Tokio cleared her throat, and Saitou looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" he gruffly inquired.

"Nothing," she said, a little too quickly and his gaze narrowed.

"What?" he demanded, and she blushed faintly.

"I just…I…thank you," she blurted at long last.

He turned his head and stared at her, incredulous; she had _not_ just thanked him…

"It was a very nice kiss."

…for kissing her.

"You're welcome."

…And he had _not_ just said that.

She nodded, and they lapsed into silence again. And then Saitou let out a snort of laughter as it occurred to him that of all the scenarios he'd envisioned, this one had never made the list.

"What?" Tokio asked, curious, and he looked over at her, noticed her hair was _very_ messy and couldn't help himself: he full-out laughed like a lunatic, and Tokio watched him with a look on her face that told him she was well and truly convinced that he'd completely lost his mind.

"Saitou-san?" she asked, looking concerned. "Are you all right?"

He put an arm around the back of her seat.

"Tokio," he said, still laughing, "you have no idea what you've gotten yourself into."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 7: Serenity Now…Insanity Later:_

"Do you want something Tokio-san?" Sae asked.

"A bullet to the head would be nice," Tokio said.

"Fresh out of that, ma'am," Sae said politely.

"Then I suppose a cup of coffee will have to do."

---

"I prefer not to throw up on the board," Tokio replied.

"Bet you'd make a helluva impression, though," Okita observed.

---

"What the hell is 'Serenity Now'?" he asked finally.

"A steaming load of crap," she replied.

"Well I got _that_," he replied. "I mean what is it _supposed_ to be?"

---

"You're still a cheater."

"And you're a sore loser."

"Better than being a cheater."

* * *

Apologies for any errors; I'm sick and was feeling a little punchy when I looked this chapter over. Let me know if I screwed up gloriously, deal? 


	7. Serenity Now, Insanity Later

**A/N:** In light of the recent "more-of-a-note-than-anythings" posing as "words-to-watch-out-for", I've given these usurpers their own section. And in the course of writing this author note, have provided yet more evidence in favor of the opinion that I am, in fact, cracked. Not that anyone was surprised or anything, right…?

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

ofuda: a slip of paper with magical properties, usually to protect against something of the supernatural nature (anyone who watches _Inuyasha_ will recognize them; they're one of Miroku's forms of protection…and also commonly used in his fake exorcisms).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

-kun: one of the honorifics, usually used only for young men. However, it can also be applied to young women working in a traditionally male position.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Seven: Serenity Now…Insanity Later _**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saké, Tokio decided the next morning, was an evil, evil drink.

When her mother came into her room and shook her awake, saying it was seven thirty and if she didn't get up soon she'd be late, Tokio wanted to die.

Actually, she was reasonably sure she was in the process of dying—the painful throbbing in her head and just behind her eyes told her so.

Her brother, Morinusuke—who was off today—came into her room with a bloody Mary and toast. Tokio took the bloody Mary.

"You should eat something Sis," he chided as he sat on the edge of her bed and watched her sip the red liquid.

"Not unless I want to hurl," Tokio replied, voice rusty. "Gods, I'm never drinking saké ever again!" she moaned.

Morinusuke raised an eyebrow and sent her a dry look.

"You say that every New Year's," he commented, then ducked when she threw a pillow at his head.

It missed and he sat up with a smirk. Tokio glared at him over the rim of her glass.

"You were totally wasted last night," Morinusuke remarked, picking up her pillow and laying it over his lap. "You go out with Teruhime and Kamatari again?"

"N—yes," Tokio said quickly, and Morinusuke's eyes narrowed.

"Sis…."

"What are you, my mother?" Tokio snapped, then groaned when her head started pounding harder.

Morinusuke rolled his eyes.

Looking at them, one never would have guessed they were related. Morinusuke took after their father, with Kojuro's small eyes and prominent chin and deep, gravelly voice. He was, however, much taller than their father; the younger Takagi was an impressive five foot eight in a family where the maximum height for males was somewhere around five three.

Tokio looked like their mother, with her same small frame and huge dark eyes and small mouth. She had her father's temper though; Morinusuke was more like Katsuko in temperament, more willing to find a compromise that suited everyone. Tokio and Kojuro, on the other hand, subscribed to the ever popular "It's-my-way-or-the-highway" school of thought.

Then again, it wasn't exactly odd that Tokio shared so much of her father's personality—up until Morinusuke had been born, Kojuro had been resigned to not getting his long awaited boy, and he'd poured all his frustrated energy into teaching Tokio what he'd have taught a son. And even after getting his boy, he still treated her more like his first-born son than his first-born daughter. Neither sibling minded. It was simply the way things had always been.

Tokio sat back in her bed and sipped her bloody Mary, glad her brother had become friends with the American kids he'd met at a house party during his last year in high school—they'd taught him some very useful things, including how to make the wonderful bloody Mary she was currently drinking.

"You go out with Enishi?" Morinusuke prodded.

"Naw," Tokio replied. "Not this time."

"Akira-kun's friend?"

Tokio sent him an incredulous look.

"Morinusuke, are you on crack? Like I'd get drunk in front of Akira-kun's best friend!" Tokio made a face. "But gods, sometimes it'd _really_ help, you know? Yuichi-san's _so_ boring. I hate it when he calls me to go out."

"So tell him no next time," Morinusuke said, unable to understand why his normally blunt older sister would subject herself to a date she didn't want.

"But he's always been really nice to me," Tokio protested.

"But he's boring," Morinusuke replied.

"It's rude."

"Tell him you're sick."

"And then the next time he asks? I can't be sick forever, Morinusuke," Tokio grumbled.

"You think too much," Morinusuke muttered, and Tokio stuck her tongue out at him. "Be nice, or I won't make you another one of those when you come home wasted again." he threatened, gesturing with his nose to the glass in her hand.

Tokio pulled her tongue back in and sent him a resentful look.

"And after all the nights I stayed up late helping you study for your tests, too," she muttered. "Ungrateful little brothers are the worst."

"Not as bad as unappreciative older sisters," Morinusuke shot back.

"Oh go away," Tokio mumbled crossly. She paused as she thought of something. "Uhm…Morinusuke? Did Papa hear or see me last night?"

"No," Morinusuke said, hiding a grin; if there was one person Tokio was afraid of upsetting, it was their father, whom she adored. "Papa has no idea you came home drunk last night. And he'll be leaving in about fifteen minutes, so I'd suggest you go lock yourself up in the bath room so he doesn't see the bloodshot eyes."

Tokio groaned and threw the sheets back.

"Crap," she muttered. "I think it's gonna be a bad day."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Tokio arrived at the museum at half past nine, she was wearing sunglasses and no make up and feeling like calling in sick would have been the better choice.

Her stomach, while declining to relinquish anything, had been threatening to do so all morning, and she was still feeling vaguely off balance and a little dizzy. The bloody Mary had helped a little, as had the two aspirin she'd downed before leaving the house, but her head was still pounding, and the noise on the train, slight though it had been, had not helped; several times, she'd been absolutely sure that she'd been moments away from jamming her heel into the speakers when that annoyingly cheerful music had come on to announce arrival and departure.

Mercifully, she was not attacked by anyone upon entering the museum, and she made it to her office without incident. Sae was seated at her desk outside, and upon seeing Tokio, she got up and bowed low.

"Good morning Tokio-san," she said politely, and Tokio winced a little behind her sunglasses even though Sae hadn't said her greeting any louder than usual.

"Good morning Sae," she replied. "Mail?"

"Here you are," Sae said, holding out a thick stack which Tokio took with a very slight nod that still made her head feel like it was going to explode. Or roll off her shoulders onto the floor. Either one seemed equally plausible at this point.

"Thanks—no calls for the next two hours," Tokio said, walking to the door of her office and turning the knob.

"Oh Tokio-san the officers are—" Sae began.

"In my office," Tokio finished with a sigh upon catching sight of Saitou, Aoshi, Kenshin, and Okita. "Thanks anyway for the warning."

"Do you want something Tokio-san?" Sae asked.

"A bullet to the head would be nice," Tokio said.

"Fresh out of that, ma'am," Sae said politely.

"Then I suppose a cup of coffee will have to do."

"Yes ma'am," Sae said with a nod, and Tokio walked into her office and shut the door.

"Good morning gentlemen," she said, walking over to her desk carefully.

"Mornin'," Okita said, wincing vaguely.

"How are you feeling Tokio-san?" Aoshi asked; he was pale and looked a little tired, and Tokio envied him for a split second, because he looked a hell of a lot better than she felt.

"Ever been hit by a truck?" Tokio asked, tossing her mail on her desk and taking her purse off her shoulder.

"Er…no," Aoshi said, raising his eyebrows slightly. "You have?"

"No, but I imagine this is what it might feel like," she replied, easing into her seat with a sigh and leaning back.

"I _knew_ last night was a bad idea," Kenshin muttered; he didn't look any worse for wear, except for looking like he needed a couple extra hours of sleep, and Tokio _really_ envied him.

"I'll survive," Tokio assured him, then winced when her head began pounding in earnest. "Maybe."

"All the employee records from the museum's start to three years ago check out," Saitou said, forgoing niceties like "Good morning" and "How are you feeling?" and Tokio decided he was the most worthy of her hate, because he looked completely and utterly normal. But she'd have to wait to hate him, because she'd come in late and it was time for business.

…Stupid business.

She turned her attention to him and pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"And the records from three years ago to now?" she inquired.

"About seventy percent of them are legit," Okita said.

"The other thirty have been doctored," Saitou finished.

"Including the Hiruma brothers," Tokio concluded. She sighed and frowned. "Gods…I'm not looking forward to explaining this to the board."

"TOKIO!" Enishi's voice suddenly cut through the air, and Tokio almost leapt out of her chair.

"GAH—OW!" she howled, clutching her head.

The door to her office was thrown open, and Enishi appeared, looking incensed.

"What time is this to be walking in you lazy wench!" he bellowed.

Tokio, who had put her head down on her desk, slowly raised it and sent Enishi a look that would have very likely dropped him stone cold dead where he stood had it been physically possible, so it was a really good thing it wasn't. And since her sunglasses had slid down to the end of her nose and her bloodshot eyes were visible, she also had a very scary air going to add to the effect.

"Do. Not. Yell," she said tightly. "Or I will _kill_ you."

Enishi narrowed his eyes.

"Did you get drunk last night?" he asked. "Your eyes are bloodshot—you did get drunk last night, didn't you!"

"Stop yelling damn it!" Tokio snapped, then whimpered when her head punished her. "Oh gods I'm never drinking saké ever again!"

"You say that every New Year's," Enishi said, then ducked when Tokio picked up the nearest object—her nameplate—and chucked it at him.

"Don't be obnoxious," she snarled, grabbing her stapler when he evaded the nameplate.

"Well you do," he said, and barely managed to sidestep the stapler. "Cut that out, damn it! You almost hit me that time!"

"That's the point!" Tokio shot back, grabbing the stress ball her brother had given her last year and preparing to hurl it at Enishi.

Saitou reached over and grabbed her wrist.

"I think that's quite enough," he said. "Shut the door Yukishiro, and get in here. You might as well hear this too."

Enishi looked wary.

"This is bad news isn't it?" he asked.

"It's always bad news," Tokio muttered, flopping back in her chair. Her cell phone suddenly went off, and she cringed, grabbed her purse and dug through it and answered it to make her head stop threatening to explode.

"What?" she demanded, groaning. She sat up in surprise. "Tomoe-san!"

"Akira's dead, isn't he?" Enishi asked dryly, and Tokio shot him a cold glare that had the officers suddenly admiring the ceiling tiles.

"Yeah, I've been here since eight," Tokio lied, rubbing her temple. "No, everything's fine here. No. No, really, everything's fine. Yes. I swear—huh? I sound weird? Uh…my reception's a little off, that's all," she invented. "No, I'm pretty sure it's the reception Tomoe-san. Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. I'll look into it—how's the boss? Good. Today? Wow, that was fast." She looked over at Enishi and mouthed "Surgery's today," before turning her attention back to Tomoe. "Huh? Oh, you're welcome. Now maybe you'll stop nagging me for being such a bully where Akira-kun's health is concerned. …It's a joke, Tomoe-san, I know you don't mean it. Hm? Oh don't bother, Enishi's here. Yeah, we were exchanging our usual pleasantries—no, he's not unconscious, Tomoe-san."

Tokio held out her cell phone.

"She wants to make sure you're still alive," she said, and Enishi rolled his eyes and stepped forward to take the phone.

"Like you could kill me," he said with a sneer.

"I've come very very close," Tokio reminded him with a saccharine smile.

Enishi's conversation with Tomoe was brief and he was just as insistent as Tokio that everything was fine. When he hung up, he handed the phone back to Tokio and said,

"You know she knows we're lying, right?"

Tokio sighed and put her phone on silent.

"Yeah," she replied. "But at least she can't do anything yet. She'll stay with the boss for the next month, at least, before we have to worry about her poking her nose around here. Hopefully by then, the sky will have stopped falling."

"Or it'll have fallen and crushed us and we won't have to worry about explaining anything," Enishi offered, and Tokio gave him a thumbs up.

"That's the spirit."

Someone knocked on the door.

"If you have bad news you can go to hell," Tokio said.

"I have your coffee Tokio-san," Sae said through the wood, not sounding the least bit thrown off by her boss's announcement.

"Oh. Well in that case come in," Tokio said.

Sae opened the door and walked in, and gave Tokio the biggest mug any of the officers had ever seen.

"Now _that's_ coffee," Okita said.

"Damn straight," Aoshi agreed, and Tokio smiled.

"Sae? Would you get the officers some coffee as well?" she asked, and Okita and Aoshi and Kenshin sent her grateful smiles.

"Yes ma'am," Sae replied, bobbing her head. "By the way, Tokio-san," she began, and the smile Tokio had been wearing dropped.

"I said no bad news," Tokio growled.

"I know ma'am, but this is very important bad news."

Tokio sighed.

"What now?" she asked wearily. "What more do you want from me? Isn't my soul enough?"

"The board of trustees is here," Sae said, and deadly silence descended on the room.

"WHAT!" Enishi and Tokio demanded at the same time.

"They can't be here!" Enishi shouted. "It isn't time for a meeting yet!"

"Why didn't you say anything sooner!" Tokio demanded. "Damn it Sae, this is the kind of crap you need to warn me about, not the payroll!"

"The payroll's important," Enishi said.

"Not as important as getting raked over hot coals by the board!" Tokio bellowed. "Oh gods, I _knew_ I should've stayed home today!"

"Now now," Kenshin said, deciding someone needed to restore order. "Calm down, Tokio-san. Getting hysterical isn't going to do you any good."

"That's what you think," Tokio said bitterly, ripping her sunglasses off her face and tossing them on the desk. "Okay, okay. I can do this. I can bullshit the board, right?"

"You're gonna have to," Enishi said. "What do you want me to get you?"

"Did you update the damage report?"

"Last night."

"Okay, I want that. I want an expenses list and I want you to pull the exhibit budget and all expenditures related in any form or fashion, however minute, to the exhibit."

"Got it," Enishi said with a nod.

"How fast can you get me that?" Tokio asked.

"Twenty minutes."

Tokio winced, then frowned, thinking.

"Okay, maybe if we fed them, they wouldn't mind being made to wait." She looked up at Sae. "They're in the conference room, right?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Okay, here's what's going down: you're going to call the nearest restaurant and order breakfast for the board—Shimada-san likes saké with his breakfast," (she made a face when she said that) "and Katsura-san likes fried eggs; everyone else will eat whatever you put down in front of them. Got that?"

"Yes ma'am." Sae said with a nod.

Tokio looked over at Enishi.

"We can afford breakfast for the board, right?"

"To save our asses? Absolutely."

Tokio nodded, then looked back to Sae.

"Run like the wind," Tokio advised. "Keep them busy, anyway you can, for twenty minutes, all right Sae?"

"Yes ma'am—do you want me to order you something too?"

"I prefer not to throw up on the board," Tokio replied.

"Bet you'd make a helluva impression, though," Okita observed.

Tokio and Enishi ignored him.

"What else are you gonna need?" Enishi asked.

"A cross, some holy water and a few ofuda might make me feel better," Tokio replied. "Maybe a priest or two as well, just to be safe."

"I was serious," Enishi said flatly.

"Who said I wasn't?" she returned, and Enishi rolled his eyes.

"I'm leaving to get everything together," he said, striding for the door.

"Me too," Sae said.

"Right," Tokio said with a nod. She paused when she thought of something. "Sae? Find me some eye drops, huh? The ghostly pale face is bad enough without the bloodshot eyes."

"Yes ma'am," Sae said before disappearing, shutting the door behind her.

Tokio sighed and plopped down in her chair wearily.

"Sorry guys," she said, "but I'm going to have to ask you to patiently wait until after the board crucifies me to discuss your findings."

"We can wait," Saitou said. "By the way, we got the search warrant for Wu's office."

"And residence," Kenshin added, and Tokio raised an eyebrow.

"_Very_ nice work gentlemen."

"We aim to please," Okita said wryly, and Tokio smiled.

"And so you have. Well, if you want, I give you permission to rip Wu's office apart while I go meet my Doom."

"It can't be that bad, Tokio-dono," Kenshin said.

"Oh yes it can," Tokio replied. "Not only are they going to go ballistic when they see the damage report, they're gonna scream bloody murder over Akira-kun's having made me Acting Director without their consent—that's a big no-no."

No one had a reply to that, so no one said anything for several minutes, until Saitou asked,

"Do you want me to go in there and explain how we're handling the investigation?"

Tokio watched him, gaze thoughtful, then said,

"That is an excellent idea, Assistant Inspector."

"He's full of 'em," Okita assured her. He grinned. "And other things."

"Not as full of 'other things' as you are," Saitou shot back with a glare.

"Well! How about I point you all in the direction of Wu's office?" Tokio suggested hastily, getting up. "That sounds like a good idea."

"They'll never kill each other," Aoshi assured her. A pause. "But they'll probably hurt each other."

"A lot," Kenshin agreed.

"Death or partial maiming," Tokio replied, picking up her coffee, "is never good press."

Aoshi and Kenshin exchanged looks, then shrugged and nodded.

Tokio led the way to Wu's office, Saitou and Kenshin behind her, and Okita and Aoshi behind them. They approached a door bearing a neat sign proclaiming it "Human Resources." The secretary's desk in front of the door was deserted, and several days' worth of mail was scattered over the desk top.

"Where's the secretary?" Kenshin asked.

"Fired," Tokio replied. "Wu did the honors himself before he decided to screw us over."

"And her records?" Saitou asked.

"Will be in your hands before the end of the day," Tokio assured. She reached out and grabbed the knob and tried to open the door, but found it locked. She held her mug out to no one in particular, not looking back. "Someone take this please."

Kenshin took it from her, and then she grabbed the knob with both hands and tried to force it open for several seconds before she abruptly let go, turned around and looked at Saitou.

"Break it down," she ordered, and he smirked and drew his nightstick.

"With relish," he said, dropping into his Gatotsu stance.

Five seconds later the door exploded, pieces of it flying everywhere. Tokio watched, impressed.

"So that's the Gatotsu, huh?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," Aoshi replied.

"Boy Okita-san, you better hope you never piss Saitou-san off to the point that he _does_ Gatotsu you in the head. I doubt you'd survive."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Tokio-san," Okita said dryly.

"I just call it like I see it."

Saitou slid his nightstick back into its place on his belt, then brushed pieces of door off his shoulders.

"You all know what to do," he said, stepping out of the way to stand by Tokio.

"Right," Kenshin said with a nod. "How long do you suppose the meeting will run?"

"Give it an hour," Tokio said, then sipped the coffee she had taken back from Kenshin with a bob of her head and a polite "Thank you Himura-san."

"All right then," Aoshi said. "I'll get the gloves and evidence bags."

"I'll have Sae get Wu's phone records for you too, while we're at it," Tokio said thoughtfully.

"We were gonna need those anyway," Okita said.

"Okay then—have fun boys," Tokio said with a wan yet somehow still cheerful smile.

"Oh we will," Okita assured her with an evil grin. "We _will_."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

As it turned out, the meeting with the board was actually two hours and forty minutes long, most of which consisted of Tokio making a valiant effort at defending herself and the museum, and Saitou trying to contain the urge to shoot select board members.

She had exactly two of them on her side: Katsura Kogoro and Takasugi Shinsaku, Chairman and Vice Chairman of the board of trustees respectively, and when the other board members got too loud or belligerent or abusive, they stepped in and restored order. Saitou didn't like having to sit back and do nothing, especially not when he saw how sapped Tokio looked midway through the meeting. She was at a huge disadvantage; these were the men who decided the future of the museum, not employees she could order around and snap at with impunity. She had to be extra polite and take the abuse because she was basically at their beck and call…and her being female didn't help her position any. No one ever outright said it, of course, but Saitou was no fool—he knew the board members wouldn't have come down nearly as hard on Kiyosato.

Just as she had predicted, the board members—even Katsura and Takasugi—had a fit over the cost of damages. She took a lot of flack for that, but Tokio handled it surprisingly well, considering the mini panic attack she'd had just before she and Saitou had gone into the conference room; he'd had to make her breathe in and out a few times before she was coherent again.

They'd gone through the list, item by item, and had fought the whole time over how much to spend on replacement cases and the lighting and the new security cameras. They calmed down a little when he talked about the investigation, and only the bravest men on the board dared ask him any questions.

They raised the biggest stink over Tokio's being named Acting Director without the board's say-so—again, just as she'd predicted. They went back and forth on this matter for a long time, and at one point a few of the members started talking about pulling her out and having the board itself assume control, but Katsura abruptly ended that avenue of discussion with a withering glare and several choice words. Saitou saw Takasugi send Tokio a wink before he loudly voiced his agreement with Katsura, and Tokio was watching them with real appreciation in her gaze.

In the end, Tokio received the board's vote of confidence ten to zero, and Saitou imagined she got it for two reasons: one, he was standing behind her seat, glaring at the room at large and daring any one of them to give him a reason to attack them; and two, Katsura and Takasugi made a few very thinly veiled threats that won them his grudging respect.

"You two are godsends," Tokio said to Katsura and Takasugi once the other board members had filed out. "Thank you, really. You don't know how much I appreciate your support."

Takasugi snorted.

"We like you," he said. "You always remember to bring us good saké for New Year's."

Tokio laughed.

"Only the best for the Chairman of the Board and his Vice Chair," she teased, and Takasugi grinned broadly.

"Having Inspector Saitou in your corner didn't hurt either," Katsura observed. "I never thought I'd see a man who could cow Shimada so absolutely with just a look."

"It's easy enough to cow a spineless man," Saitou said coolly, and Katsura smiled faintly.

"Indeed. I've heard excellent things about you, Saitou-san. I'm glad you're handling this investigation."

"He looks like a man can get things done," Takasugi observed, eyes narrowed. "Course, appearances can be deceiving."

"Oh we can count on him," Tokio assured him. "Saitou-san's very efficient."

"Well if you trust him, that's good enough for me," Takasugi said, abruptly standing. He leaned down and patted Tokio's shoulder. "You call us if you run into trouble, okay?"

Tokio nodded, smiling.

"Thank you Takasugi-san," she murmured.

Takasugi grinned.

"You're a good kid, Tokio-kun. We trust you—right Chairman of the Board?" he asked, looking up at Katsura, who also rose.

"Absolutely," Katsura agreed. He smiled at Tokio. "Let us know how Akira-san is doing when you hear, all right?"

"Yeah," Tokio said, nodding. "Tomoe-san'll probably call me later tonight to let me know how the surgery went—he went under the knife…I think an hour ago."

"We'll have to pay him a visit," Katsura decided, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Or send him a card or basket, at the very least."

"I think a visit might trigger cardiac arrest," Takasugi said dryly. "Better send a card."

"Hm, right," Katsura said. His gaze returned to Tokio, and he smiled encouragingly. "Remember, Tokio-san—don't hesitate to call us if you need help."

"I'll call, Katsura-san," she said emphatically. "Promise."

They said their good-byes and left, and as soon as the door to the conference room had clicked shut, Tokio sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, and she looked very haggard all of a sudden, with her defenses down.

"You all right?" Saitou asked.

"No," she admitted quietly, surprising him. "I can't get up."

He frowned, then leaned down and helped her up, and found she was shaking very badly.

"Tokio," he said, alarmed.

"It's just nerves," she told him. "Don't worry about it."

"You can barely stand up and you're telling me it's nothing to worry about?" he asked incredulously.

"It's nothing," she insisted wearily. "It'll go away once I relax."

"In that case you may never walk again."

"Hardee har har, Inspector."

Saitou helped her out of the conference room and down the hall toward her office. They were nearly there when Tokio stopped abruptly.

"What?" he asked.

"Restroom," she said, tugging at his sleeve.

"What?"

"Restroom I said," she replied, and there was a distinct edge to her voice now.

"Why?"

"Do you want me to throw up on you?" she snapped.

Saitou raised his eyebrows and abruptly changed direction, helping her to the ladies' room.

"Do you need—"

"No," she said before disappearing through the door, clutching the wall so she wouldn't fall.

He heard her retching a few seconds later, and had to fight the immediate urge to follow her in and make sure she was all right, because she sounded horribly, _violently_ ill.

"Don't worry, huh?" he muttered with a scowl, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall next to the door.

Tokio gripped the sides of the toilet bowl so tightly she lost all feeling in her fingers. It seemed like a very long time before she'd emptied her stomach, and when the dry heaves had stopped, she managed to free one of her hands and flush the mess away. It took her several more seconds before she was able to rip off some toilet tissue and wipe her mouth and nose, and then rip some more off to wipe the toilet down. Once that was flushed away, she managed to straighten and slide back the latch to the stall she'd run into moments before she'd thrown up.

She made it to the sinks and once she got there she looked at her reflection in the mirror, then winced and wished she hadn't: she was even paler than she'd been before, except for the two spots of red on her cheeks from both leaning over and throwing up, and she was sweating. Her eyes, while no longer as bad as they'd been—those eye drops had done wonders in so short a time—looked dull and glassy.

In short, she rather looked like hell.

"Knew I should've stayed home today," she murmured.

"Tokio?" Saitou called through the door.

"I'll be out in a minute," she replied, then sighed and reached out and managed to fumble the faucet on.

She heard the door whoosh open and looked over her shoulder to find Saitou striding in.

"This is the ladies' room, Saitou-san," she said.

"I can read, thanks," he returned. "Gods you look like shit."

She sent him an impressively withering look, considering how weak she was feeling.

"How sweet," she said flatly.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up," he said, ignoring the look and the tone.

"I'm not a baby," she muttered irritably.

"You may as well be," he snapped. "Now stop being obnoxious and shut up."

He held her steady while she rinsed out her mouth and splashed cold water onto her face, then shut off the faucet for her and left her side long enough to grab a few sheets of paper towel. He turned her around, then dried her face off for her.

"My hands work, you know," she commented.

"I told you to shut up," he said.

"And to stop being obnoxious," she reminded him.

"Yes well, that's impossible," he replied, meeting her eye, and she saw he was very irritated, "which is why I didn't repeat it."

"You are _such_ an ass," she said with a sigh.

"Fine thanks I get," he muttered, gently wiping her chin dry. "I'll have you know one of the secretaries saw me come in here."

Tokio smiled despite herself.

"Then several horribly embarrassing rumors about you are currently making the rounds of the office."

He paused in his attentions and sent her a flat look. Tokio rolled her eyes.

"You have no sense of humor, you know," she told him.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked, deciding to ignore the subject.

She smiled faintly, but decided to have mercy on him.

"Some. My head is still killing me, though."

"You should've stayed home," he said. "Made Yukishiro face the board."

"No way, he'd have lost his temper with them and we'd be even worse off. At least now they aren't as mad at us anymore," she replied. "I'm just going to lie down in my office for a little while and hope my eyes stop trying to fly out of my head. Then, I can maybe go see how the lighting installment's doing, and visit Kamatari and Anji-san and hope they have some good news for me, and then, if I can find the time, I'm going to phone my brother and call him several obscene names."

"Why?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because he gave me some advice that failed miserably."

"What advice?"

"'Serenity Now'."

Saitou watched her in silence for several moments, expression inscrutable.

"What the hell is 'Serenity Now'?" he asked finally.

"A steaming load of crap," she replied.

"Well I got _that_," he replied. "I mean what is it _supposed_ to be?"

"It's supposed to help you calm down."

Saitou rolled his eyes.

"That worked _beautifully_," he muttered.

"Exactly—thus, steaming load of crap."

A knock on the door interrupted:

"Hello? Tokio?" Enishi called.

"Yeah?" Tokio replied.

"Are you okay? Sae said you were going back to your office with Saitou when you suddenly headed for the restroom."

"I'm fine," she assured. "Just really very tired all of a sudden."

"Should I come in for you?"

"No—Saitou-san's already in here with me," Tokio said, ignoring Saitou's motions to stop talking. "What?" she asked, looking at him, and he looked heavenward and sighed wearily.

"Forget it," he muttered.

There was a long pause outside, and then Enishi slowly asked,

"…Saitou's in there with you?"

"Yeah."

Another long pause.

"Are you two doing something dirty?"

"Yukishiro I'm going to rip your balls off and feed them to you," Saitou promised.

"Eww!" Tokio sent him a disgusted look. "Saitou-san! That's gross! I did _not_ need to hear that!"

"Then you should have kept your mouth shut," he snapped. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

He turned and strode to the door in a very dignified and very affronted manner, and whipped the door open so hard he nearly ripped it off its hinges. Enishi was there, his dark glasses perched on the end of his nose, as usual, his expression schooled.

"Don't forget to zip your fly," he said calmly, and Saitou whirled on him.

"I'm kidding—_I'm kidding_!" Enishi yelped, holding up both hands in the international signal of "Please-don't-kill-me!"

Saitou growled, then turned on his heel and stalked away, and Tokio waited until she was sure he wasn't around to look at Enishi, who was watching her.

They both promptly burst into hysterical laughter, until they heard Saitou yell at them to shut the hell up, whereupon they settled for snickering like children, as it was safer.

"You know you're in his bad books now, right?" Tokio asked as Enishi threw a brotherly arm around her and helped her back toward her office; she wasn't shaking as badly anymore, but she was still feeling weak and tired.

"Yeah," Enishi said with a sigh. Then he grinned at her. "But that was _so_ totally worth it."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saitou cracked the door of Tokio's office open an hour later.

It was lunchtime, and Sae and the other secretaries had gone to lunch, as had most of the executives and the curators and assistants. Sae had kindly provided the officers with lunches from a restaurant down the street yet again, and they were currently in the conference room, wolfing it down. But Tokio, who usually joined them for lunch, hadn't come out of her office since going in earlier, Sae had informed them, and as far as she knew, her boss wanted nothing to do with food or people for a while longer.

But, Saitou reflected, he wasn't people—he was one person, and since her objections had been confined to _people_, he felt was quite free to come in and check up on her.

She was lying down on her stomach on a small couch up against the wall, next to the door, with her left arm hanging off the edge. Her jacket was covering her legs—she was wearing a knee-length skirt of sedate black today—and her breathing was low and even.

He wondered for a moment if he should awaken her, then decided he should at least see if she was hungry. She ought to have _something_, seeing as how she'd thrown up whatever she'd had in her stomach earlier.

So he stepped into the office and shut the door, then walked to the couch and stopped by it, wondering how to go about this so that he didn't cause her unnecessary fright and himself unnecessary pain, because he had no doubt she'd come awake swinging if he scared her. In the end he settled for sitting on the couch with her and gently shaking her shoulder.

"Oi, Chiisai," he said, careful not to pitch his voice too loudly. "Wake up."

"Five more minutes, Sae," she murmured.

"I am _not_ Sae, thank you very much," he said with an edge to his voice. "Now wake up wench."

She groaned and cracked an eye open.

"You're not Sae," she mumbled.

"Damn right I'm not," he muttered.

"What's wrong?" she asked, shutting her eye again. "Find something in Wu's office?"

"Nothing of particular note," he said, "but there're still a few files to go through. And Okita's been going through his computer, looking for anything suspicious. It's a little scary how good he is with those things—he'd have been a professional hacker if he weren't a cop, I think."

Tokio smiled, but didn't open her eyes.

"Then I'm glad he's on our side." she said. "So if you haven't found something and nothing's wrong—nothing's wrong, right?" she asked, frowning slightly as if in anticipation of the bad news she seemed to live in dread of hearing.

"Everything's fine," he assured.

"Then what's up?"

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"My head doesn't hurt as bad," she replied, opening her eye to look at him. "Why?"

"We were wondering," he said. "Are you hungry?"

"Blech," was her reply, complete with grimace. "Don't talk about food, please. I'm still sort of nauseous, and I don't think you'd appreciate it if I threw up on you."

"Not particularly, no," he dryly agreed. "You sure you don't want anything? Shinomori'd probably give you some of his green tea if I made him."

Tokio laughed a little.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine," she returned. "Poor Shinomori-san."

"Like not drinking it for one day'll kill him," Saitou muttered with a sneer, and Tokio chuckled.

"You're a mean, evil man," she replied with a sigh, turning over so she was on her back now and could see him comfortably.

And that was when he remembered last night's conversation. Well, sort of—he had been mostly drunk at the time, but he remembered the gist of it. He thought.

"I resent that, you know," he said with a frown.

"Resent what?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and looking very amused.

"Being called mean."

She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"Well, all right," she said after a moment. "You aren't mean. But you're definitely not the nicest person I know. That would have to be Himura-san."

The mention of the red-haired man had Saitou's frown deepening.

"And just what is so great about Himura?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Tokio replied with a negligent shrug. "He's just a very nice man."

He glared at her.

"What's the deal with you and Himura, anyway?"

"'Deal'?"

"Yeah—you listen to him and not me."

She smirked at him.

"_He_ asks me nicely—_you_ order me around. Now if you were to ask me to do things nicely, I might be more willing to cooperate in a manner that suits you."

He glared at her for several moments in silence.

"You know I'm right," she said after a pause.

"Oh shut up," he muttered, glare deepening.

"You see? That's what I'm talking about," she said, pointing at him.

"Fine—please shut up," Saitou snapped, and Tokio laughed.

"Not quite what I had in mind, but it's a start," she replied, still smiling.

"He said you provided him a kindness—what 'kindness' was he talking about?"

"Well apparently, there's some history between him and Tomoe-san," she said, moving around so that she was sitting up a little. "And I sort of helped him avoid her when she was here the first day. I take it the history has a disappointing end, if Enishi's reaction is anything to go by. Then again, Enishi's a little neurotic and he overreacts to lots of things, so maybe he isn't the best barometer."

"You didn't ask?" Saitou raised an eyebrow.

Tokio shrugged.

"It's none of my business. If Himura-san wants to tell me that's fine, but if he doesn't mention it, I won't either." She sent him a speculative look. "Why don't you know? Don't you work with him?"

Saitou snorted.

"I don't care about Himura's personal life," he muttered. "He can have his little secrets—not like I give a damn."

"Then why the interest?"

He glared at her, and she wisely decided to drop the topic, though not before she realized he was probably a little jealous that she'd struck up such a quick and friendly rapport with Kenshin.

Which made her all happy inside.

"Getting back to your perception of me," Saitou said, "I discovered last night that you think I'm mean _to you_."

"Well you are," she said, and his jaw tightened.

"The hell I am," he shot back. "I walked you to the train station last night, I helped you to the toilet and helped you clean up after you'd thrown up and I came in here to see how you were doing. If I wanted to be mean to you, I'd have left your drunk ass at The Gutter Ball and wouldn't have been so attentive this morning."

"Yes, that would have been quite mean-spirited of you," she agreed. "I suppose you're not as bad as I thought you were."

His eyes widened and he stared at her in shock.

"What?" he demanded, and Tokio smiled and reached out and patted his arm in a comforting manner.

"Now now, Inspector," she said. "You're starting to sound like Enishi."

"W—He's worse than I am!" Saitou yelled, incredulous and a little pissed by the comparison. "He tried to whack Himura's head off his shoulders!"

"No, Enishi's just a little disturbed," Tokio corrected. She absently rubbed the back of her neck. "I guess I should have used my jacket as a pillow," she commented idly.

"Sit up," he ordered.

She sent him a "What-did-we-JUST-talk-about?" look, and he rolled his eyes.

"Would you please sit up Tokio?" he asked through gritted teeth, and she smiled sweetly.

"Absolutely Saitou-san," she replied, and sat up.

He scooted closer and took hold of the back of her neck and started massaging the muscles there, and Tokio immediately let out a groan of pleasure and relaxed, leaning forward so that her forehead rested against his shoulder.

"I changed my mind—you're the nicest man on the planet, and may the gods strike me dead if I ever say otherwise," she murmured, and he smirked.

"Better than Himura?" he asked.

"Much nicer than Himura-san," she said, and he frowned.

"I said better," he said.

"And I said nicer, not better."

His frown deepened a little, and then he decided to hell with it.

They sat like that for a long time, Saitou working on her neck and the base of her skull, and Tokio occasionally groaning and repeating that he was the nicest man on the planet. It occurred to him that if anyone should happen by when she was groaning, the sound could be grievously misconstrued. It also occurred to him that he didn't particularly care.

Once he deemed her suitably relaxed, he decided it was time to address another little finding from last night.

"Tokio," he said.

"Hm?" She raised her head with difficulty to meet his gaze.

Saitou leaned over and kissed her, and she went from sleepy and relaxed to wide-awake and rigid in the blink of an eye. Which lasted for all of a second, before she kissed him back.

In an absent sort of way, he noticed that she smelled like laundry again, and realized that hadn't been a very weird saké-induced delusion on his part. Mostly, though, he was more interested in kissing her than in why she smelled like laundry instead of some ridiculous flower or another. And he thought she was pretty interested too—at least until she suddenly pulled back and muttered something about being sick.

Before he'd quite realized what had happened, Tokio had left the office and he was on the couch wondering what the hell had just happened. When she came back a few minutes later, he was right where she'd left him and still trying to figure out what had happened.

"What was that?" he asked as she shut the door.

"I told you I was still nauseous," she replied, plopping onto the couch next to him with a sigh, and he sent her a dirty look.

"Thanks," he snarled, and she laughed and leaned her head against his arm.

"I don't mean _you_ made me feel sick, stupid. It was the cigarettes you smoked between now and the last time I saw you."

"Oh," he said after a pause, and she laughed again.

They sat in silence for several minutes and then Tokio quietly asked,

"So I didn't have some crazy dream where you kissed me last night? That actually happened?"

"Yes." Pause. "And actually, if you want to be specific, you kissed me."

Tokio winced.

"I knew getting drunk in front of you was dangerous," she said with a sigh.

"Not as dangerous as being sober," he said with a smirk. "If we'd had that conversation sober, there's a good chance you wouldn't have made it home last night."

Tokio coughed faintly, blushing.

"You know, I don't think this conversation is appropriate for our surroundings," she murmured primly.

"Chicken," he chided.

"Through and through," she shot back, and he snorted.

"All right Acting Director," he said, putting an arm around her. "We'll leave this discussion for a more appropriate time and place."

"Thank you," she said with a quiet sigh.

"I'll call you tonight and we can discuss it then," he continued, and Tokio choked.

"What!"

He raised an eyebrow.

"What? Did you think I was going to let you put it off indefinitely?"

"Well no, but—"

"Then you shouldn't be so surprised."

"But tonight!" she protested.

"Well what's wrong with tonight?" he asked reasonably.

"I'll be home!"

His brow furrowed in confusion.

"Okay you're going to have to explain this to me, because I don't get it," he said finally. "You don't want to talk about it here, and you don't want to talk about it at home either?"

"No!"

"It's not like I'm going to show up at your house, woman."

Tokio made a weird sound in the back of her throat, like a cross between a squeak of surprise and a groan of despair, and jumped away from him to stare at him in horror.

"NO!" she yelled. "NO coming to my house, Saitou Hajime!"

"That's what I said—don't point that thing in my face, it's rude," he snapped, grabbing the offending digit she'd shoved into his face and pushing it gently away.

"You're not coming to my house," Tokio insisted.

"I don't even know where you live, wench," he growled. "Quit being a dimwit, it doesn't suit you."

"You're not—"

"If you say I'm not coming to your house one more time I'll strangle you," he promised, and she sent him a petulant look.

"You're not, right?"

"No, I'm not," he said in exasperation.

Tokio nodded and settled back against him. He waited a few minutes, then asked,

"What time should we have this conversation?"

She promptly groaned.

"You can't be calling me when I'm home!" she whined.

"Well when the hell am I going to call you, woman?" he demanded. "I can't exactly talk to you during the day, since you refuse to discuss it here. That leaves night."

"But I'll be home!"

"Why is that a problem?" he demanded, fully irritated now and not the least bit shy about showing her.

"Because I live with nosy people," she said wearily.

"What nosy people?"

"My parents and my brother."

"Tokio," he said, exasperated. "What are you, twelve? Tell them to mind their own damn business."

Tokio snorted.

"Obviously you don't know what it's like to live with no privacy," she muttered.

"Yeah, actually, I do—it's why I moved out at nineteen."

"You can't call me at home," she argued and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Then I'll call you on your cell phone," he said with exaggerated patience.

"But they'll hear me talking to you!"

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. "Fine then—how is this going to work? Because I'm out of ideas, unless you have objections against dinner."

There was a long pause.

"Dinner?" she asked slowly.

"Yes Tokio, dinner. The last meal of the day, which occurs sometime between five and eight—"

"You're being a jerk again," she interrupted.

"I'm entitled to it after allowing myself to get sucked into such a stupid argument," he shot back.

She muttered something that he decided not to pursue, knowing that odds were excellent that it would cause another argument, and likely of the stupid nature, given today's track record.

"Well?" he demanded after a long beat of silence.

"Well what?" she muttered irritably.

"Do you have any objections to dinner or not, damn it?"

"Is that any way to ask a woman to dinner?" she demanded, looking up at him.

"When she's being pigheaded about it it is," he replied, glaring at her.

She sent him a withering look.

"If you don't ask nicely I'll say no," she threatened.

"And if you say no I'll find out where you live and show up at your door tonight," he promised, and she blanched.

"F-fine!" she grumbled, looking down again. "Cheater."

"What?" He raised an eyebrow and stared at the top of her head.

"I said you're a cheater," she replied, bad temper evident in her voice.

"You never said there were any rules," he pointed out. "Which means anything goes."

"You're still a cheater."

"And you're a sore loser."

"Better than being a cheater."

"Tokio…." he said, tone holding warning. "I do not want to get into another stupid argument with you."

She snorted but didn't say anything else, and after a moment, she snuggled into his chest a little more.

"Comfortable?" he asked mildly.

"Yes, though if you were a little squishier you'd make a better pillow. Just a thought."

He had no idea what the proper response to that was, and he was silent for several minutes before he decided on,

"Okay."

They sat in silence for some time, and then Saitou said,

"You do realize that I'm going to have to get up eventually, right?"

There was no response, and when he leaned over slightly to look at her face, he found her asleep. He watched her face for several moments, wondering how he was going to get out of this without both awakening her and catching shit from the other officers, because if he didn't come back soon they were going to come looking for him. As it was, he'd already been gone a really long time, and they were no doubt speculating on the reason for that.

And knowing them, none of it was anything they'd be able to repeat in mixed company.

In the end, Saitou decided he'd rather catch shit from his coworkers than disturb Tokio, since he could always threaten and/or beat them senseless later.

Besides, there were worse spots to be in. And he didn't particularly mind if the other officers thought he'd been banging the acting director in her office for most of the lunch hour—the head of finances already thought he'd done her in the ladies' room.

It'd just add to his general reputation.

Whether that was actually a good thing or not, of course, was up for debate.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 8: Not A Date:_

"Are you…talking to yourself?" Kamatari asked slowly.

Tokio stared at the effeminate design director for several beats of silence.

"…Maybe," she said finally, just as slowly.

---

"I don't want to sleep with him," Tokio protested, absently rubbing her knuckles.

"Well why not? He probably wants to sleep with you."

---

"You're a letch, you know that?" she replied.

He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not that old, you know," he said mildly.

"Lechery knows no age," she informed him.

---

"It takes a lot to terrify me," he assured. "And as long as you never actually kick me in the crotch, we're good."


	8. Not A Date

**My crap Internet connection BLOWS. There. I feel _much_ better now.** My Internet connection was being an ass, which is why this chapter was late getting posted; I'm not technical in the least, so it took forever to get back up again. Stupid, incomprehensible technology….

**Oh, before I forget to "c.y.a." my "a":** Kamatari's personality is partially based off my dear dear friend Davi, who went away for college and who I miss very very much. I love you Davi!

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

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Words To Watch Out For:

Nothing you need to know that you didn't already. : ).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Shunga: translated literally, it means "picture of spring" or thereabouts—do not let this innocent sounding name fool you. Shunga prints are ukiyo-e (woodblock prints and paintings of landscapes, the theatre and pleasure quarters; word itself means "pictures of the floating world") pictures produced primarily from the 16th to 19th centuries, and are, shall we say, explicit in nature (the best example I can think of off the top of head would be _Samurai Champloo_'s "Artistic Anarchy", episode 5).

hopscotch: yet another attempt to "c.y.a." my "a"—just go with it when you see it. This is all in good fun and silliness, after all. ; ).

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Eight: Not A Date**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"It's not a date," Tokio told herself as she stood before the mirror above the sinks in the women's restroom later that evening.

It was nearing closing time, and Saitou would be showing up any minute now to collect her and take her to dinner. It wasn't until she'd realized that she would be eating dinner _alone_ with the Wolf of Bunkyo Ward that she'd suddenly regretted saying yes.

Actually, she didn't regret it so much as rue it.

Actually, she didn't rue it so much as dread it.

Actually, she didn't dread it so much as…oh never mind.

Her current panic was over whether or not tonight's dinner could be classified as a date. He had never really said it was a date, but one did not necessarily have to say an outing was a date for it to actually be a date. And he _had_ asked her out, which was usually a glaring sign that the outing was, in fact, a date. So technically this could be called a date.

"It is _not_ a date," she insisted, glaring at her reflection in the mirror. "He didn't say so. If he'd said so, it'd be a date. But he didn't say so, so it's _not_ a date. So there."

And she stuck her tongue out at her own reflection to prove her point.

…She was thinking about this too hard.

Or possibly having a psychotic episode.

"I am so pathetic," Tokio muttered, covering her face with her hands.

It wasn't like she'd never been on a date before, mind you. She had, and several times. But she wasn't usually in a state of near paralyzing panic. Maybe a little nauseous (and actually, she was a little nauseous now too) and nervous, but never about to start hyperventilating—this was new.

Adding to her state of general panic was the fact that her blouse was a little wrinkled from having slept in it on the couch (and on him, which when he'd finally nudged her awake, she'd been totally mortified by), and she wasn't wearing any make up. She didn't even have her cosmetics in her purse—since she hadn't put them on that morning, she hadn't seen the point in bringing them along. Her hair was a mess too; the low knot she'd put it in was now a messy tangle—she had her suspicions that that had been Saitou's doing, because she knew for a fact that she hadn't moved around enough while she'd been asleep for it to look like that when she'd awakened. The only slightly wrinkled state of her blouse told her so.

…And had she mentioned the run in her stockings…?

"It's _not_ a date," she growled.

The door swung open, and Tokio found Kamatari watching her, one eyebrow raised.

"Are you…talking to yourself?" Kamatari asked slowly.

Tokio stared at the effeminate design director for several beats of silence.

"…Maybe," she said finally, just as slowly.

Kamatari pursed his lips.

"Tokio-chan," he said after a moment, "are you feeling okay? Because talking to yourself—while very entertaining, I'll admit—doesn't really scream mental stability. Just look at Enishi-chan."

"He'll kill you if he hears you calling him that," Tokio warned.

Kamatari sniffed and examined his fingernails.

"He doesn't scare me," he said. He shot Tokio a wide, letchy grin. "He's got a great ass on him, though—"

"Kamatari," Tokio said, shutting her eyes and grimacing. "I do _not_ need to hear that."

Kamatari pouted. "You never let me finish," he whined.

"Only when you're talking about Enishi," Tokio replied with a sigh. "Did you need something?"

"Not really," Kamatari returned, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the door. "I was just on my way to your office when I heard you talking to yourself in here and decided to make sure you hadn't gone all psycho."

"Well?" Tokio prompted.

"Jury's still out on the insanity vote," Kamatari said, and Tokio rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead, frowning.

"Kamatari-chan," she said wearily. "I'm really not in the mood for this right now."

Kamatari's face became serious.

"What's wrong?" he asked, straightening and uncrossing his arms and walking in.

"Nothing," Tokio assured. "Nothing. I'm freaking out over nothing."

"You look awful," Kamatari remarked, and Tokio glared at him.

"Thank you," she said tightly, and Kamatari stepped back and held up both hands.

"Calm down," he said mildly. "I wasn't trying to be a bitch." He stepped closer to Tokio and leaned his chin on her shoulder. "What's wrong, huh? Enishi-chan stressin' you out again?"

"I'm not helping you if he hears you calling him that," Tokio muttered with a pointed look at Kamatari in the mirror, and Kamatari grinned.

"That's okay—I _adore_ one-on-one time with Enishi-chan."

Tokio gagged, and Kamatari slapped her hip.

"Stop it," he ordered, straightening. "And answer my question."

Tokio drew in a deep breath then let it out.

"No, Enishi isn't my problem," she said. "My problem is taller and a lot more intimidating."

Kamatari looked thoughtful, then suddenly grinned.

"_Oh_—that police inspector with the squinty, "I-will-destroy-you" eyes, right?"

Tokio sighed, and Kamatari let out a snort of laughter.

"Tokio-chan, I really don't see what the problem is—didn't you already screw him twice today?"

Tokio sent Kamatari a horrified look.

"WHAT!"

"Well yeah," Kamatari returned, not the least bit ruffled by her shout and its accompanying echo. "I heard the secretaries say he came in here after you, and apparently Enishi-chan told him to make sure his zipper was up, and then he spent like the whole lunch hour in your office with you—"

"I'm firing the secretaries," Tokio growled.

"Is he any good?" Kamatari asked, only vaguely interested. "Because he looks like he wouldn't be much fun—"

"I changed my mind—I'm _killing_ the secretaries," Tokio muttered.

"—but then, you never can tell until you get his pants off—"

"Stop stop _stop_," Tokio said, waving her hands, face on fire. "Kamatari-chan, I'm telling you, _nothing_ happened. He came in here after me because I got sick after the meeting with the board, and he was in my office for so long because we got into an argument, but that's _all_. And Enishi only said that to piss Saitou-san off, not because anything had actually happened."

Kamatari eyed her, then shrugged.

"I believe you," he said, and Tokio sighed in relief. "I thought it was a stretch anyway, you being so repressed and all."

Tokio choked.

"'Repressed'?" she parroted.

"Well yeah," Kamatari replied, absently flicking and flipping his shoulder length hair until he was satisfied with it. "You never talk about sex."

"I haven't had enough sex to talk about it," Tokio muttered.

"And that's another thing—when was the last time you got laid, huh?"

Tokio drew in another deep breath and wondered if it was in fact possible to die of embarrassment. Because if it was, she had to be very close.

"I don't know," she said evenly, surprised she was as calm as she was.

Kamatari snorted.

"That's what I'm talking about. You haven't had sex in so long that you don't even remember the last time you had it. That, or it was probably awful, in which case you shouldn't try to remember it at all."

Tokio shut her eyes and wished very hard to disappear.

Or die.

Yeah, dying sounded good.

Actually, she wasn't quite as embarrassed as she would have been if she'd been having this conversation with, oh, for example, her _father_ (which would never happen ever, and if for some horribly wrong reason it did, Tokio would be forced to rip out her ear drums), but it was very very close.

Most of her embarrassment stemmed from the fact that it was her sad, pretty much nonexistent sex life under discussion, and not because it was Kamatari; with the exception of Kamatari's fixation with Enishi, nothing about the effeminate man fazed Tokio, and they'd found good friends in each other.

"Your weirdo attitude with sex was imported, you know," Kamatari continued, now inspecting his face in the mirror. "You're the only person I know who never says anything remotely sexual—gods woman, really, you act like this is Meiji Japan or something. Because that's when the weirdo attitude got introduced, you know. Up until then, intimacy was viewed as a natural part of life. I mean, mothers gave their daughters Shunga prints as part of their dowries, so that their daughters would have an idea of what sex entailed, and some of those prints are graphic, you know? But that changed in the Meiji era, when Japan embraced Western culture and thus its code of social mores and acceptable behaviors so the Westerners wouldn't look down their noses at us and call us uncivilized. We're not as bad as the Americans, of course, because historically we've always been more open about human sexuality, and actually, I'd argue that the idea never really took hold here because of our natural outlook on sex—even shows aimed at kids have those little wink-wink-nudge-nudge sexual references, you know—but a product of that time period is sexually repressed people like you."

"Kamatari-chan," Tokio said wearily, rolling her eyes, "I am _not_ going to give you permission to lecture the patrons on sex and repression in the Meiji era."

Kamatari pouted at her in the mirror.

"Why not?"

"Because Akira-kun would kill me," Tokio said, exasperated.

Kamatari frowned and went back to examining his face in the mirror.

"It'd be an interesting lecture," he muttered. "And it pertains to the exhibit. Sort of."

"I'm not denying that," Tokio assured. "But I doubt the board or Akira-kun would agree, and I have enough trouble without giving the board an excuse to go after my head again."

"Bad meeting this morning?" Kamatari asked, serious now, and sympathetic.

"You have no idea," Tokio muttered, shoulders drooping as she eyed herself in the mirror. "The only thing that saved me was that Katsura-san and Takasugi-san were in my corner." A pause. "Well, and Saitou-san was apparently sending the board members his "I-will-destroy-you" look."

"Aw, how sweet," Kamatari cooed, and Tokio sent him an incredulous look.

"Are you crazy? How is him threatening, with his eyes, to destroy the board sweet?"

"He was defending you, silly girl," Kamatari said in an exasperated tone, as if that should have been obvious. He smiled at her. "He really likes you, you know. You can tell—when he's around you, he always makes sure he's next to you, and any time someone comes near you he gives 'em that "I-will-destroy-you" look. He gives it to Enishi-chan a lot," Kamatari added thoughtfully. "Why is that, I wonder?"

"Oh, Saitou-san is convinced Enishi's going to hurt me," Tokio said, rolling her eyes. "I've told him a hundred times already that we're just playing around, but he doesn't believe me."

"Well," Kamatari said with a considering look, "I can see why—it's a really weird way of playing around."

"Yeah, well, we're not normal," Tokio returned, and Kamatari snorted.

"No shit," he replied.

"So what's the dilemma?" Kamatari asked, after evading a whack on the arm from Tokio. "What is it about your Inspector that's got you talking to yourself?"

"Actually, I was talking to my reflection," Tokio corrected.

"That's not better, Tokio-chan," Kamatari dryly returned.

Tokio groaned and covered her face with her hands.

"He wants to take me out for dinner tonight," she said, voice muffled.

There was a long pause.

"Okay," Kamatari said, obviously waiting for more.

"That's it," Tokio said.

"That's it?" Kamatari asked.

"Uh-huh."

Kamatari blinked.

"He wants to take you out for dinner tonight and that's why you're talking to your reflection?"

"Could you stop with the me talking to myself?" Tokio asked, exasperated.

"Reflection," Kamatari corrected.

"Whatever! Just stop mentioning it! It makes me sound crazy."

"Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery," Kamatari remarked, and Tokio glared at him. "Okay, okay—geez, I was just trying to lighten the mood." He sighed and cocked his head. "Tokio-chan, I don't see the problem."

"We'll be alone! Together!"

"Well, yeah. So? You guys were alone in your office today and nothing naughty happened."

"Because it was my office and there were people around," Tokio said, wringing her hands now. "But dinner's different! There aren't as many people around—and it's darker!"

"Tokio, I'm pretty sure he isn't going to take you on the dinner table," Kamatari said. "Saitou's not the kind of guy who screams spontaneous dinner table sex in a restaurant full of people."

"And look at me!" Tokio said, having obviously not heard a word Kamatari had said. "I'm all wrinkled and messy and I don't have any make up with me and my stockings have a huge run in them that I don't remember how I got—"

"Maybe you screwed him on the couch in your stockings and forgot," Kamatari dryly suggested, and Tokio's mouth snapped shut and she stared at him, her huge eyes huger than usual.

"What?" she asked finally, and Kamatari laughed and hugged her.

"My poor kitten—you really like him, huh?" he said, patting her back and still laughing. "Come on Tokio-chan. I'll help you out, okay?"

"Okay," Tokio agreed, feeling a little less frantic. She paused. "I don't think I could have sex with him and not remember it, Kamatari."

"Hm—maybe you'll find out tonight, eh?"

"Oh gods!"

"Aw, Tokio-chan, come on! I was just kidding! Hey don't be like that! Come back!"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Fifteen minutes later, Tokio was calmer than she'd been but not quite as composed as she usually was.

She'd tossed the stockings after Kamatari had told her to just take them off, it wasn't like she was going to be reprimanded for not wearing any to a restaurant. When he'd seen the skin colored thigh highs, he'd grinned and told her she should invest in more of those, because men had a certain fondness for a woman in thigh high stockings.

"And you have great legs," he'd added. "That just adds to it."

Tokio blushed.

"Kamatari-chan," she began, and he waved his hands.

"They don't have to be fishnets or anything like that—though fishnets do tend to be synonymous with hookers—"

"Kamatari," Tokio said a little louder. "I appreciate that you're trying to help me out, but I kind of need to hurry. He's going to be here soon, and I don't want him coming into the museum."

Kamatari frowned, puzzled.

"Why?"

"I just don't want him coming in, okay? I just want to go."

Kamatari eyed her, then shrugged.

"Okay," he said. "Whatever you like. We'll save the fishnets for another day."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now come here and let me fix your hair, it looks like you've got birds nesting in it."

"Thanks Kamatari-chan," Tokio muttered, rolling her eyes.

In the end, Kamatari hadn't fixed her hair so much as taken it out of the knot, brushed it and told her to leave it loose.

"You have sexy hair," he'd informed her. "You should use it to your advantage, kitten."

"I hate my hair down," Tokio muttered, fingering a few strands nervously.

Kamatari rapped her knuckles with the back of the brush sharply.

"Stop that, you'll tangle it again. And you should wear your hair down more often, it suits you. If your Inspector keeps his hands to himself, he's totally gay, and I doubt that highly, since he's so fixated on you. I dare say he bangs you tonight."

"I don't want to sleep with him," Tokio protested, absently rubbing her knuckles.

"Well why not? He probably wants to sleep with you."

"I mean I don't want to sleep with him now," Tokio amended. "As in tonight."

Kamatari cocked his head thoughtfully.

"You're right," he decided. "Very trashy to give it up on a first date."

Tokio flinched, and abruptly spun around to face Kamatari, who was seated on her couch, she on the floor in front of him.

"This is _not_ a date!" she snapped. "This is dinner! That's it! _Not_ a date!"

He stared at her.

"This is so a date," he returned.

"It's not a date!"

"Tokio!"

"NOT A DATE!"

Kamatari winced and put his hands over his ears.

"Fine!" he snapped, glaring at her. "It's not a date!"

"Thank you," Tokio said with a polite bob of her head.

"Crazy wench," Kamatari muttered.

"I heard that—_young man_," Tokio said, and Kamatari gasped in outrage.

"Tokio! You said you'd never call me that!"

"Don't call me crazy!"

"Well you are! You're so deluded that you refuse to call this a date even though that's clearly what it is—"

"IT'S NOT A DATE!" Tokio shouted, irate.

Ten minutes and a few hair-pullings later, they agreed to disagree, and Tokio smoothed down her skirt and straightened her blouse as best she could.

"Your jacket'll hide the worst of it," Kamatari said, putting his hair into order once more.

She nodded as she shrugged into said jacket and fixed her collar, then buttoned it up.

"How's it look?"

"Like you're going to a business meeting," Kamatari said. "Or a funeral. Or a business meeting at a funeral."

Tokio sent him a flat look.

"You look fine, Tokio," Kamatari said, exasperated.

"Thank you Kamatari." She pursed her lips, then walked over to where he was sitting, plopped down on the couch next to him and threw her arms around him.

"You're beautiful, I love you," she said, kissing his cheek, "and I'm sorry I called you that."

Kamatari considered it for a moment, then smiled and hugged her back.

"Forgiven, as long as you promise to never say it again and keep your promise this time," he said, squeezing tightly. "Promise?"

"Promise!" Tokio squeaked, then sighed in relief when he eased up. "Gods, you're strong—you almost bruised a rib."

"Well, it's not just anyone who can swing a giant scythe around and look as good as I do," he said mildly, and Tokio laughed and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"You're very full of yourself."

"I have a lot to be vain about."

Tokio giggled and tickled his side.

"Oh yes," she teased. "So much."

Kamatari sniffed. "Laugh if you like, but it's true." he replied. "I have a job I love, I work with people I adore—especially Enishi-chan—and I'm in a very stable relationship."

Tokio smiled thoughtfully.

"You're absolutely right," she murmured. "You do have a lot to be vain about."

"You do too, kitten," Kamatari said. "You've got a tall police inspector coming to take you out to dinner—which is in no form or fashion a date, I should add—and who may eventually screw you until you can't walk, especially if you make him wait for it."

"Though I do hope she doesn't make me wait too long," came Saitou's wry voice from the doorway and Tokio let out a yelp like a scalded cat and jumped up off the couch.

"Oh you're here," Kamatari said cheerfully, sitting up and smiling at the man in the doorway of Tokio's office.

Saitou gave a slight nod.

"So it would seem," he replied, then looked over at Tokio, who was staring at him in horror, face a shade of red he hadn't thought possible.

He hadn't heard the whole conversation; he'd just caught the tail end of it as he'd neared the door, but what little bit he'd heard had amused him to no end. And if it was possible, her reaction had tripled his amusement.

This was by far the most embarrassed he'd ever seen her, surpassing even the first time he'd decided to use what she called the "pervert voice" on her, and she'd been quite embarrassed then—especially since her reaction to the "pervert voice" had had the whole of the luncheonette staring at them and Shiori slapping a hand to her forehead and shaking her head wearily, while Saitou had fought down the urge to laugh and nearly lost.

Making her lose her composure was one of the true pleasures in his life.

And if that sounded evil, well…then he was a little eviler than he'd originally thought.

"Your secretary was kind enough to let me in on her way out," he said, leaning a shoulder against the door jamb, a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth.

She didn't seem capable of speech. At least, that was his assessment when she only nodded her head.

"Oh man, Sae's gone?" Kamatari asked, surprised, as he stood. "I need to get going." He shot Tokio a bright smile. "I'll see you tomorrow kitten—have fun!"

Tokio's expression turned from one of horror to one of horrified terror, and Saitou was hard pressed not to burst out laughing.

And then the design director was gone, and Tokio was watching him with an expression that sort of reminded him of sacrificial virgins being offered to monsters.

Hm…sacrificial virgins….

"Ready?" he asked.

She flinched at the sound of his voice.

"Huh?" she returned, voice high and nervous.

"Are you ready?"

"I…uhm…yeah," she said, and he pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. "I just…my purse…and then…yeah."

She didn't move, and it took supreme effort not to smile.

"Chiisai," he said, knowing the hated nickname would galvanize her.

And like magic, she was suddenly herself again: she glared at him, some of the flush leaving her face.

"You are the devil," she said through gritted teeth.

"Perhaps," he allowed. "In any case, I'd like to eat something some time tonight, preferably before most places close. Do you think you could possibly arrange that?"

"You're being an ass again, Saitou-san," she said as she walked to her desk and picked up her purse.

"The ass is hungry and as such is not responsible for his actions."

She paused and eyed him.

"You communicating with your inner ass?" she asked.

"Sure, why not," he said, shrugging the shoulder not leaning against the door jamb. "If other men can be in touch with their inner goddess or whatever, I can be in touch with my inner ass."

She pursed her lips, obviously trying to not burst into laughter.

"'Inner goddess'?" she repeated, eyes dancing.

"I heard it somewhere," he said, bored. "Can we go now?"

"Sure—I'd hate to anger your inner ass," she said, smiling, and this time he allowed himself to chuckle.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It turned out Tokio had had a near meltdown for nothing—dinner was soba from a soba stand.

When she saw it she had two immediate and conflicting urges: she wanted to laugh, and she wanted to HURT him. She decided that laughing would be the safest avenue, even if wasn't nearly as gratifying as kicking him in the shin. And possibly in an area several inches higher and far more tender.

He raised an eyebrow when she started laughing.

"What's the joke?" he asked, wondering if he _really_ wanted to know—he was beginning to see that he knew abysmally little about this woman, for having known her for eight years.

"Nothing," she managed to get out, hand against her chest. "Oh gods, Kamatari's going to kill me tomorrow."

"Why?"

"I sort of freaked out on him tonight," she said, wiping her eyes.

"Are you _crying_?" he asked, baffled.

"I'm okay now," she assured him, still giggling a little. The giggles died when he leaned closer and sniffed her. "What are you doing?" she asked nervously.

"Making sure you aren't three sheets to the wind," he replied. "Did you drink anything before I got there?"

"Are you out of your mind? After the hangover I woke up with today?" She snorted and turned up her nose. "I never want to see another glass of saké again."

"Uh-huh," he returned, not quite convinced. "Come here," he said, grabbing her by the chin and moving her closer to him so he could see her face better. He examined her eyes, or at least he did for all of five seconds, before she rolled them and poked him in the stomach.

"Oi, you," she said. "You were the one who was complaining about how hungry he was."

"You don't look or smell drunk," he remarked, and she glared at him.

"I'm not drunk, ahou," she snapped. "You've seen me drunk, so you know I'm not this coherent when I'm trashed."

"You slur your words worse than a tanked sailor," he agreed.

"I did not want you to agree with me," she said in exasperation.

"Then you shouldn't have said anything," he replied, and she glowered at him.

"Still nauseous?" he asked, moving his hand from her chin to the back of her head, taking hold of her hair.

"No," she muttered. "Kinda pissed off at you thou—"

His mouth cut her off, and he was amused when she immediately responded—Chiisai was catching on very quickly.

"Good," he murmured, against her lips.

"If you think I'm letting you off because you kissed me, you're more demented than I am," she said, and he smirked and kissed her again, hard, then tucked her into his side.

"Come on Chiisai, I'm starving."

"You were the one who held us up," she muttered.

"Hm—you weren't complaining just now."

She didn't reply, and he smirked.

She hadn't noticed until just now that he wasn't in uniform. Granted, she'd been supremely mortified by his appearance at her office just in time to hear a very private and embarrassing conversation between friends. At the time, she'd been far more focused on finding a hole to crawl into and die than in noticing his manner of dress.

Happily, he didn't seem inclined toward making any more comments on the conversation, for which she was desperately thankful and also a little suspicious about. She doubted that he was entirely finished torturing her with that conversation, especially since it had potential for at least a dozen cracks in his favor.

But that was getting off topic.

…What was the topic again?

Oh right: he wasn't wearing his uniform.

This wasn't the first time she'd ever seen him in street clothes; he'd showed up at the luncheonette on his days off sans the uniform, so it wasn't a surprise, exactly. But he was dressed far more casually than she was: dark slacks and a black button-down shirt. Consequently, she was feeling just a smidge overdressed and self-conscious. Or she was until they sat down at the stand and she caught him admiring her legs.

"Shame it'll be getting colder soon," he commented.

"Why's that?" she asked.

"You'll be wearing pants suits for the next three or so months." He smirked. "And I was hoping you'd wear that blue skirt of yours."

She blushed and cleared her throat; the skirt in question was a lot shorter than the one she was currently wearing, though not short enough to be considered indecent. This wasn't the first time he'd expressed a particular fondness for that skirt, though it was usually expressed in the "pervert voice" for maximum mortification.

"Yeah, well," she said lamely.

They fell into their luncheonette routine over dinner, and Tokio was finally able to get comfortable around him. She thanked the gods again that she'd been blessed with the ability to talk fast and think faster, because it did wonders for her morale.

After dinner, they left the soba stand and strolled around, eventually ending up in a residential area, of all places. And that was how they came upon a crudely drawn hopscotch board.

"Oh man, I haven't played that in years," Tokio said, immediately shrugging out of her jacket and handing it to him, along with her purse.

"What are you doing?" he asked, so thrown off he didn't even make a snide remark about not being a coat hanger.

"Looking for a rock—ah-ha!" She leaned down and picked up a piece of chalk, forgotten by whatever child had drawn the hopscotch board. "But first I need to fix it—some of the numbers are hard to read."

"You can't possibly be serious." Saitou folded her jacket over his forearm, tucked her purse into the crook of his arm, then slid his hands into his pockets.

She didn't reply, quickly fixing the smudged numbers.

He watched her, more than a little amused, as she hopped her way to ten.

"You're remarkably agile in heels, Chiisai," he commented.

She looked over her shoulder at him, glaring, then sighed.

"Why Chiisai, of all things?" she asked wearily.

He shrugged, mouth curved in a half smirk.

"It seemed very appropriate at the time," he replied, and she rolled her eyes, then hopped back to one.

"I'd like to see you play that in the blue skirt," he said with a full-blown smirk on his face.

She snorted.

"You're a letch, you know that?" she replied.

He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not that old, you know," he said mildly.

"Lechery knows no age," she informed him, absently bouncing the chalk back and forth in her hands. "Wanna take a shot at it?"

He sent her a flat look, and she had a sudden mental picture of Saitou hopping and had to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from giggling manically.

"Never mind," she said, her laughter in her voice, and he glared at her.

"I don't care for being laughed at, Tokio," he said.

"I wasn't laughing at you!" she protested, smiling a little.

"Feh," was his muttered assessment.

"Honest, I wasn't!" she insisted. "Look, see?" she asked, pointing at her face, which she made blank with difficulty. "No laughing."

He sent her a look that told her he knew she was full of shit, and she pouted, then leaned up on her tiptoes and very chastely kissed him.

"Forgive me now?"

"Play hopscotch in the blue skirt and we'll talk."

She sent him an exasperated look.

"Letch," she accused.

"Fine—wear the blue skirt tomorrow and I'll consider forgiving you."

"I didn't know you had a deviant streak in you, Saitou-san," she said, tossing the chalk onto the hopscotch board. "You don't look the type."

"Is that a yes?" he asked, ignoring her comment.

"One-track mind's there, though," she muttered, taking back her jacket and shrugging into it.

"Chiisai…." he said, just as she took her purse back.

She hunched her shoulders and gritted her teeth.

"If you call me that, I won't wear the skirt," she threatened, and he paused and seemed to weigh his options.

"Would you prefer being treated to the chorus of "Short People" until I get tired of it? Because that's really your only other option," he returned finally, taking out his cigarettes and box of matches.

She glowered at him for some time in silence; he was just enough of an evil bastard to sing the chorus every time he saw her for the next month if she didn't cooperate.

"Fine I'll wear the bloody skirt," she muttered, and he smiled faintly around the cigarette he'd lit while she'd been glaring at him.

"Atta girl," he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and letting out a stream of smoke.

She sighed. "I just know how to pick my battles," she said.

"Then you're smarter than eighty percent of the people I meet every day," he replied.

He lifted the cigarette back up to his mouth, took a deep drag, then removed it from his mouth and blew out another long stream of smoke, considering her the whole time.

"Ready to have our little talk?" he asked finally, and she frowned, not understanding what he was talking about.

"Little tal…oh," she said as she realized what he was referring to. "Right. That talk."

He looked amused as he flicked ash off the end of his cigarette.

"Well?" he prompted.

She pursed her lips.

"Why'd you wait so long? I thought we were supposed to discuss it over dinner?"

"We were, but you didn't seem quite up to conversation," he replied, and she colored faintly. "So I decided to hold off for a while. Since you seem relatively articulate now, I figure now's as good a time as any."

"How thoughtful," she said faintly.

"I do try, when I feel like it," he dryly returned, and she smiled despite the little knot that was currently growing in her stomach.

_Dear good and merciful_ _gods, **please** don't let me throw up on him_, she thought a little frantically. _If_ _you do this for me, I swear I'll never ask you for another thing ever again, just **please**_ _don't let me throw up on him._

Saitou watched Tokio as she stared at him with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights sort of expression. He wasn't particularly offended that she seemed to find him so intimidating, though it was vaguely disconcerting, somewhere in the back of his mind. Mostly, he was amused that he'd been able to so totally throw her off balance.

If he'd known showing even the slightest interest in her would knock her off her equilibrium like this, he might have done it a lot sooner…like a day after meeting her.

She wasn't looking too good—time to bring her back.

"Chiisai?"

That did it: she glared at him.

"I really haven't the faintest idea what I find attractive about you," she snapped.

"You only want me for my body, then," he drawled, and she choked.

"What!"

He shrugged and pretended to think it over.

"Well I can live with that," he said. "There's worse motives, I suppose."

"You-you-you!"

"Yes?" he asked, putting his cigarette back between his lips.

"I do _not_ want you for your body!"

He examined the glowing tip of his cigarette.

"Hm…too bad. I want you for yours," he nonchalantly added, and she made an odd sound—a sort of squeaky choke. Or perhaps a choke-y squeak.

"Would you be serious!" she finally demanded.

"I am," he replied matter-of-factly. "You've got great legs, and a nice ass—"

"SAITOU HAJIME!"

He looked over at her.

"Hm?"

She was blushing even more furiously than she had earlier when he'd caught her and Kamatari talking. She was looking quite embarrassed and humiliated, and he thought he might have gone just a little too far this time.

She drew in a deep breath and let it out.

"Saitou-san," she said, voice calm. "If you're going to tease me, I'm going home."

He tilted his head ever so slightly.

"All right Tokio," he said. "No more teasing."

"Thank you."

"But I think this is the reddest you've ever gotten."

"Saitou-san," she growled. "I don't care if you did pay for my soba—I _will_ kick you."

He nodded in acknowledgment of her threat and she let out an annoyed huff of a breath and her expression smoothed out. Then she sent him a hesitant look.

"Uhm…so…I've got a nice ass?"

He grinned.

"If what your skirt was showing me is true, then yes."

She cleared her throat.

"Oh. Huh."

He took his cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it down and rubbed it out, then hooked a finger into the waistband of her skirt and dragged her closer.

"I'm not particularly easy to get along with," he informed her.

She nodded, eyes huge.

"I'm generally irritable and cranky," he continued.

She nodded again.

"I detest other people's children, and usually can't stand other people for longer than five minutes, if that."

Again, a nod.

"However," he said, raising an eyebrow, "if you're willing to overlook that, I'm willing to overlook your less admirable qualities."

She was about to nod again, then stopped and glared at him.

"My '_less admirable qualities_'?" she repeated incredulously.

"Your penchant for throwing things, yelling and attempting to kick people in the balls come immediately to mind," he said dryly.

She sent him a sour look.

"You forgot your holier-than-thou attitude, Saitou-san," she muttered.

"And your penchant for pettiness."

"And _your_ penchant for being an ass," she shot back, eyes flashing.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about," he remarked, unconcerned with her assessment.

She made a sound of extreme frustration.

"You're such a _jerk_!"

"You knew that already," he pointed out.

She sent him a petulant look.

"Yeah, well you already knew I had a bad temper," she muttered.

"And I've decided I can live with that," he replied, "as long as you don't make a habit of trying to kick me in the crotch. It's not conducive to getting laid, you know."

"Yeah well on the upside, assuming I kick you in the crotch hard enough, you'll probably be shooting blanks," she snapped back, then slapped her hands over her mouth and stared at him in horror as he threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh gods!" she moaned, covering her face with her hands.

"Come here, stop that," he said, still laughing, as he took her hands away from her face.

"Oh gods," she groaned hanging her head, utterly mortified, and he smiled widely, highly amused.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "It's probably a very effective method of birth control."

She groaned louder and he chuckled and gave her rear end a friendly pat.

"Not that I want to try it or anything," he added.

"I can't believe I said that," she said into his shirt front, where she'd decided to hide her face.

"Me either," he said with a grin.

"And I can't believe you didn't run away screaming into the night," she continued.

"I'm reasonably sure it would take a lot to get you so pissed off at me that you'd kick me that hard," he replied. A pause. "And I'm also reasonably sure that I'd be able to move out of the way in time if I ever did."

She laughed this time, then peeked up at him.

"You're not mad?" she asked. "Or terrified?"

"It takes a lot to terrify me," he assured. "And as long as you never actually kick me in the crotch, we're good."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

They walked to the train station hand in hand, which was a new experience for Saitou, since he wasn't really given to displays of affection unless he wasn't in public. But Tokio brought it out in him—he thought probably because he knew it embarrassed the hell out of her.

Plus, she was soft and smelled good. That played a big role in it too.

"Remember to wear the blue skirt tomorrow," he reminded her as they stood outside the station, and she rolled her eyes.

"Letch," she murmured with a faint smile.

"I don't forgive easily, Tokio," Saitou said mildly.

She looked like she was trying not to laugh at him, and he glowered at her.

"What did I say about being laughed at?"

"It's a _skirt_," she said.

"And you said you'd wear it tomorrow."

"You're a real simple guy, huh?" she drawled, one eyebrow raised.

He rolled his eyes and she laughed, then looked down at her watch.

"Time to go," she said, then leaned up and kissed his cheek. "'Bye." She grinned. "Thanks for dinner, cheapskate."

He sent her an offended look.

"I am not cheap," he replied. "I knew taking you to an actual restaurant would freak you out. More appreciation for my tact and insight, if you please."

She watched him, surprised, then slowly smiled and leaned up and kissed his cheek again.

"Thank you Hajime," she murmured.

"That's more like it," he muttered, and she laughed. "Go on, before they leave your ass behind," he ordered, giving her rear a light slap. "Because if they do, you'll be going home with me tonight, and neither one of us is sleeping on the couch."

She blushed but did as he ordered.

"Oi, Tokio," he said, grinning, just before she got into the station, and she looked over her shoulder at him, curious. "By the way—it _was_ a date."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 9: I'd Tell You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You:_

"How good a shot is he? I'd rather not linger—being shot sucks."

"And being bludgeoned to death with a nightstick doesn't?" Okita replied.

"At least you'll get the nightstick—he's going to use a _katana_ on this one," Kenshin said.

---

"He thinks you're a total wimp, you know," Okita commented, looking at Kenshin, who sent him an exasperated look. "What? It's not like he hides it or anything."

---

"_Yukishiro-san_ sends you threats?" Aoshi asked incredulously.

"We send each other threats," Tokio corrected, not the least bit ruffled.

There was a long pause.

"You people are all insane," Saitou muttered at long last.

---

"But they'll yell at me!" she wailed.

"Well don't you think it's about time someone yelled at you?" he snapped back. "You've yelled at everyone else."

* * *

**Additional A/N:** Just as a little aside; parts of Kamatari's "sex & repression" speech are liberally adapted from an insane blow-out argument my friends and I had in the middle of a restaurant at my university during my last Spring semester. It was an awesome moment to be a spectator in the Griller that day, I bet, watching a booth of crazy people argue _very_ loudly about sex…. 

**Also:** FFdot net was also being an ass (if Internet archives can in fact manifest such a personality defect) and not letting me do what I wanted to do, so I'm going to let you all know here, those who haven't noticed it already: I have finally got a "homepage" up (it's a LiveJournal account). Any and all information pertaining to my writing is going to be announced/posted/what have you there from now on. So just clicky the linky to find out whatever you're wondering, about whatever you're waiting on.


	9. I'd Tell You, But

**A little bummed. **It appears that Lavender Valentine will be taking an extended vacation at the very least, or "leaving" at the most. First Resmiranda, now Lavender. Slowly, one by one, the wonderfully talented folks on my Favorites list are saying good-bye. _sigh_ Oh well, life goes on….

**Return of the Japanese Stooges! **Those of you asking for back story on our boys, this chapter answers a few of your questions, I hope (this one's yours, Stella-neko). And if you still have questions when you've reached the end, take heart; more answers shall be revealed as we progress. ; ).

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada. Happy reading. : ).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Also nada. Man, we're on a roll.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Nine: I'd Tell You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"We're gonna die," Okita said the next morning.

Aoshi and Kenshin looked up from the paper to find a very pale and solemn Okita standing by Aoshi's desk.

"Okita?" Kenshin asked, a little alarmed. "Are you all right?"

"It doesn't matter," he said. "We're gonna die."

Aoshi and Kenshin exchanged glances, then looked at Okita again.

"Did you eat something?" Aoshi asked. "Like some kinda weird mushrooms or something?"

"He's smiling," Okita said.

"Who is?" Kenshin asked, baffled.

"Hajime."

It took a moment for that to process:

"_Saitou_ is smiling?" Kenshin asked.

Okita nodded.

"_Saitou Hajime_?" Aoshi asked.

Again, Okita nodded.

"The Wolf of Bunkyo Ward, Saitou Hajime?" Kenshin asked, getting really worried now.

Once again, Okita nodded and Kenshin and Aoshi exchanged glances again.

"We're gonna die aren't we?" Aoshi asked.

"Yup," Kenshin replied, nodding.

"I was hoping to make captain before I died," Okita said glumly.

"This one was hoping to retire," Kenshin said with a sigh.

"I was hoping to be on the force longer than three years and a half," Aoshi muttered.

There was a long pause.

"We so shouldn't have given him shit about Tokio-san yesterday," Aoshi said finally.

"This one warned you," Kenshin immediately said.

"Aw, but it's not like it was the first time we ever gave him shit about her!" Okita protested. "We've been doin' it since the first day!"

"Yesterday was different," Kenshin muttered. "You never said anything about him having sex with her before."

Okita sent him an offended look.

"Well you were the one who said it was likely!"

"This one was making an observation based on previous observations!" Kenshin shot back. "But _you_ were the idiot who said something to him!"

"Shinomori helped!" Okita complained. "Why aren't you yelling at him?"

"Because Aoshi wasn't dumb enough to ask Saitou to rate Tokio-dono on a scale of one to ten!"

"Oh yeah, make _me_ the bad guy," Okita said sourly, crossing his arms over his chest.

There was another long pause, and then Aoshi said gloomily,

"It doesn't matter who's fault it is, you know—he's still going to kill all three of us."

"Yeah," Kenshin and Okita agreed just as gloomily.

"How do you think he'll do it?" Aoshi asked the other two, since they'd known Saitou longest and could better anticipate their respective demises.

"He's definitely going to Gatotsu me in the head," Okita said unhappily. "He's been waiting for the chance."

"Not as long as he's been looking for an excuse to skewer this one," Kenshin muttered, frowning.

"He might let you off the easiest, since you don't really annoy him," Okita said to Aoshi. "Maybe he'll shoot you."

Aoshi didn't look particularly pleased by that announcement.

"How good a shot is he? I'd rather not linger—being shot sucks."

"And being bludgeoned to death with a nightstick doesn't?" Okita replied.

"At least you'll get the nightstick—he's going to use a _katana_ on this one," Kenshin said.

"What did you _do_ to him?" Aoshi asked, not for the first time wondering how it was possible for the two men to work together when it was obvious there was some bad blood between them.

"It's a very long story," Kenshin assured.

"So summarize it," Aoshi replied, and Kenshin blinked.

"You're the first person that hasn't worked on," Kenshin admitted after a moment.

"He's sharper than most," Okita remarked.

"Himura?" Aoshi prompted.

Kenshin sighed.

"It was a very long time ago," Kenshin said wearily.

"It can't have been that long ago," Aoshi interrupted, frowning. "Saitou's been an officer for nine years, and he's only thirty."

"He didn't always work in criminal investigations," Kenshin pointed out. "And neither did this one. In fact, most of the men in criminal didn't start out working here. They were transferred from another, now defunct department."

"What department?" Aoshi asked.

Okita and Kenshin shook their heads in unison, and Aoshi sent Okita a surprised look.

"You were in it too?" he asked.

Okita grinned faintly.

"Like Himura said—most of the guys in criminal now started out there."

"What's 'there'?"

"Can't say," Okita replied, and Aoshi glared at him. "Honest, we can't! Right Himura?"

Kenshin nodded.

"As far as the rest of the department's concerned, there are only seven departments, and there have always only been seven." he said. "Any man who even hints that there were once eight departments is immediately and forcibly retired—and very quickly _disappeared_."

Aoshi raised his eyebrows.

"Then maybe you shouldn't be telling me this," he said.

"Dude, we're dead anyway," Okita pointed out. "The government can't do anything to us that'd come even close to being as bad as what Saitou's gonna do to us."

"That's true," Aoshi admitted with a wince. "So there was a secret department once. So what'd you guys do?"

Okita and Kenshin exchanged glances, and Aoshi groaned.

"You can't tell me that either, can you?" he asked.

"Sorry," Kenshin said sincerely.

"What's it matter if _you're_ going to die?" Aoshi argued. "What's it matter if _I'm_ going to die?"

There was a pause, and then Okita said, voice mild,

"He's got a point, you know."

"It was _your_ point, genius," Aoshi muttered.

Kenshin seemed to reach a decision: he looked around and made sure no one was about, then gestured Aoshi and Okita closer.

"Okay," he relented. "But none of this is repeated to anyone before you die, all right?"

"Which'll be in like fifteen minutes anyway," Okita muttered.

"The department didn't have an actual name, like criminal or traffic does," Kenshin explained. "It was a loose organization of individuals with special talents."

Aoshi raised an eyebrow.

"What sorts of talents?" he asked slowly.

"Depended on what you needed," Okita said. "If you wanted a spy, Saitou was your man. If you wanted a hacker, it was me. If you wanted a bodyguard, it was Himura. If you wanted something else, we had a guy for that too. But all of us, whether we were in the field or not, were trained to kill if need be, and nine times out of ten, it needed be."

"You're shitting me, right?" Aoshi asked after a shocked pause.

"We shit you not," Okita replied, and Kenshin nodded.

"Now do you understand why no one's supposed to talk about it?" Kenshin asked. "A lot of what we've done…nearly _all_ of what we've done…can never be revealed. It'd topple the government."

"And then we'd _really_ be up Shit Creek without a paddle," Okita added. "Because there ain't a politician in the whole of Japan that'd vouch for our sorry asses."

Aoshi digested this shocking bit of information for several moments.

"Where does your feud with Saitou come in?" he asked finally, looking at Kenshin, and Okita grinned.

"Heh—Hijikata-san's right, this kid's got nerves of steel."

Kenshin sighed.

"It's not a feud so much as an unfinished duel," Kenshin wearily explained. "Saitou strictly adheres to the old warrior code. This one, not so much anymore."

"This is over a _duel_?" Aoshi asked incredulously.

"A duel to the death," Kenshin dryly corrected.

"Oh," Aoshi said, a little surprised. "Well. That changes things, then."

"You think Saitou's totally insane now, right?" Okita asked.

"Oh no," Aoshi said, shaking his head. "I already knew he was completely insane—I just didn't think Himura was as cracked."

"This one was very young and very stupid," Kenshin said quietly. "Saitou won't ever admit it, but he was much the same. It's pride now that keeps him from letting go of the duel."

"He thinks you're a total wimp, you know," Okita commented, looking at Kenshin, who sent him an exasperated look. "What? It's not like he hides it or anything."

"So, wait a minute…when you say "duel"…do you mean with katana?" Aoshi asked.

"Uh-huh."

"Holy shit," Aoshi muttered. He paused, looking thoughtful. "So who'd win?"

"Honestly?" Kenshin asked, and Aoshi and Okita nodded. "I think we'd kill each other, so it'd technically be a draw. Saitou doesn't know the meaning of "staying down"—he'd keep coming until he was sure I was going to die."

Okita nodded:

"Psycho," he said authoritatively.

"Actually, I believe the term is "sociopath" nowadays," Kenshin said thoughtfully.

"Yeah you'd know, wouldn't you?" Okita muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Look who's talking," Kenshin muttered in reply, and Okita shot him a piercing look.

"What was that?"

"Oro?" Kenshin innocently returned.

"Yeah, I thought so," Okita said smugly. He turned back to Aoshi and that was the only reason he missed the face Kenshin made at the back of his head.

"Well that explains the Wolf," Aoshi said thoughtfully, ignoring Kenshin's childishness. "What about Yukishiro? What's his beef with you, Himura?"

"I was wondering that myself," Okita said, turning back to Kenshin, who immediately schooled his features, looking for all the world as though he hadn't changed expression since the last time Okita had looked at him.

"Wondering what?" Kenshin asked politely.

Okita rolled his eyes.

"Why'd Yukishiro try to whack your head off that first day at the museum?" he asked.

Kenshin's expression immediately closed.

"That is a personal matter," he said quietly, voice holding no room for argument.

"Aw come on," Okita whined. "What'd you do?"

Kenshin sent Okita one of his more threatening looks, and Okita frowned at him, while Aoshi stared at Kenshin and wondered if he'd imagined the redhead's amethyst eyes flashing gold for a second.

"Stingy," Okita muttered resentfully.

Kenshin sighed wearily, and rolled his eyes.

"Okita, this one's problems with Enishi are just that—this one's."

"Talking about your problems is supposed to help," Okita pointed out.

"As this one is going to die in the very near future, it seems useless to make the effort," Kenshin dryly returned, and Okita paused, then raised his eyebrows and cocked his head.

"Girly man makes a good point," he admitted, and Kenshin sent him a flat look he ignored.

"How much time do we have before Saitou comes out here to massacre us?" Aoshi asked.

"Dunno," Okita replied with a shrug. "I saw Hijikata-san call him into his office. Can't say what it was about, I didn't hear."

"Hm—then I suppose I should call Misao and say good-bye while I have the chance," Aoshi said, frowning, picking up his phone and dialing Misao's phone number. "I guess I should tell her how I want to be buried, too."

"Lucky bastard," Okita said with a mournful sigh. He looked over at Kenshin, who was also looking very despondent. "Saitou-san's gonna tear _us_ limb from limb."

"There won't be enough left to bury," Kenshin gloomily agreed.

"You think he'll let us have a last meal?" Okita wondered.

"Doubtful—Saitou thinks feeding men who're about to die is wasteful," Kenshin replied.

Okita snorted.

"That's 'cause he's a cheap son of a bitch," he murmured, crossing his arms over his chest.

"OKITA!" Saitou bellowed suddenly, and Okita leapt into the air with a yelp.

"I didn't say it!" he shouted. "It was someone else!"

Saitou appeared, scowling, and the three men nearly wept in relief; oh thank the gods, they weren't going to die—he was way too pissed off to be about to kill them.

"A call just came in from the museum concerning a threat," Saitou said. "We're leaving now."

And with that he strode off.

The men watched his retreating back for several moments in silence, and then Kenshin said,

"A miracle has just occurred, gentlemen."

"I'm _so_ gonna pray at a temple tonight," Okita said fervently.

Aoshi hung up the phone with a frown.

"She didn't even pick up," he said, more than a little miffed. "What was almost my last chance to talk to her, and I get her answering machine. How pathetic is that?"

"How long you guys been dating?" Okita asked. "'Cause if it's been over a year, you really shouldn't be surprised that she didn't pick up before the first ring ended."

"You don't know Misao," Aoshi muttered. "I honestly don't know why she has an answering machine—it's been useful a grand total of three times since she bought it two years ago."

"Maybe she's on her way in?" Kenshin suggested. "She certainly isn't here yet—we'd have heard her by now."

"I SAID NOW DAMN IT!" Saitou roared from the hallway, and the three men jumped _very_ noticeably, if the stares from their coworkers were anything to go by, and scrambled for the hallway.

"I think I liked him better when he was smiling," Okita muttered.

"Bite your tongue," Kenshin and Aoshi said in unison.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"This was in my mail this morning," Tokio said as she held out a letter to Saitou, who immediately took it from her and began scanning it; Okita, Kenshin and Aoshi gathered around him to read it.

Tokio leaned against her desk and sighed, crossing her legs at the ankles.

"At first I thought it was a joke," she continued wearily.

"It is a joke," Okita scoffed.

"It's not a joke," Saitou snapped.

"Well it _should_ be," Okita shot back. "Cutting out words from magazines? This is like bad TV come to life!"

"Which is why I thought it was a joke when I saw it," Tokio cut in, before things got ugly. "It was only after I read it that I knew it wasn't a tasteless prank."

"And then you called us," Kenshin finished.

"Actually, I called the Superintendent General, and his secretary patched me through to your chief, Hijikata-san."

"How do you get your mail?" Saitou asked.

"From Sae," Tokio returned.

"Where's she get it from?" Okita asked.

"The messenger, I guess," Tokio said with a shrug. "I don't really know."

"Call her in here," Saitou ordered, and Tokio sent him an arch look; he rolled his eyes. "If you would be so kind?" he added testily, and Tokio smiled faintly.

"Absolutely," she said politely, reached over and picking up her phone.

"What was that?" Aoshi muttered to Okita, trying not to move his lips too much.

"Search me," Okita muttered back, also trying to be slick. "I've never seen that happen in the whole time I've known him."

"E's-hay atching-way ou-yay uys-gay," Kenshin murmured frantically in English.

Aoshi and Okita stared at him.

"Who's gay?" Okita asked finally, also in English.

"He said I'm watching you," Saitou growled in Japanese, and Okita promptly grinned.

"Like what you see?" he asked innocently in kind, and then ducked as Saitou attempted to rip his head off with his bare hands.

"What was that you were speaking?" Aoshi asked, ignoring the attempted murder—er, decapitation.

"Pig Latin," Kenshin said with a sigh, wincing as Okita barely managed to back pedal out of Saitou's grasp.

"Why not just signal?" Aoshi returned. "It probably would have caused less trouble."

"This one wasn't aware Saitou knew Pig Latin and you two did not, and so assumed _it_ would cause less trouble than signaling."

"Hm. Hindsight's a bitch, huh?"

Kenshin sighed.

"A big one," he agreed.

Tokio hung up her phone and looked up just in time to see Okita run for her. He grabbed her by the arm, jerked her forward and then leapt behind her, holding her in place by taking hold of her shoulders.

"You're the only one who can save me Tokio-san!" he announced.

Tokio looked at the other three officers. Saitou was standing closest, and he was glaring at Okita who was smiling cheerfully at him from his spot behind Tokio. Aoshi and Kenshin were standing exactly where they'd been—Kenshin's eyes were closed, and he was shaking his head, and Aoshi was the picture of composure.

"Really gentlemen," Tokio said mildly. "This is very unprofessional."

"Tokio-dono's right," Kenshin piped up. "Okita, get out from behind Tokio-dono."

"Using her as a shield is the height of cowardice," Aoshi remarked, and Okita made a very rude gesture.

"Up yours, Shinomori—I know he won't attack me if I'm anywhere near Tokio-san."

"That simply makes you an observant coward," Aoshi replied.

"Aoshi," Kenshin said lowly. "It's all well and good to tease Okita about cowardice once, but more than that invites trouble. There's a reason he was once called the Demon Child."

Tokio frowned in confusion; Okita gulped; and Saitou's hair nearly stood on end.

"You _told_ him?" he demanded of Kenshin.

Kenshin stared at him with wide eyes, startled, then realized what he'd said and paled.

"Oro," he croaked.

"I don't fucking believe this," Saitou said. "What the _hell_ is wrong with you!"

"Hey now," Okita piped up. "Come on, lay off. We thought we were gonna die."

"What?" Tokio asked, startled, looking over her shoulder at him in shock.

"Oh you will," Saitou assured, gaze narrow and threatening.

"No, seriously," Okita protested, coming out from behind Tokio. "You were really happy this morning. It was scary as shit. So naturally, we thought you were gonna kill us for yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?" Tokio asked curiously.

"Nothing!" the four officers quickly assured her in loud, nervous unison.

"Look, Saitou-san, I'm not going to say anything, believe me," Aoshi said. "Himura mentioned the penalty for that lapse in judgment."

"It's the same penalty for _his_ lapse in judgment," Saitou growled, glaring balefully at Kenshin, who was "Oro"ing in earnest.

"Yeah, and I don't dislike Himura, or Okita-san, which is why I'm not going to say anything."

Saitou's gaze went to Okita, who slinked back behind Tokio with a guilty look on his face.

"Crap, he may kill us anyway," he muttered.

"Oh no he won't," Tokio said firmly. "I don't know what you four are so upset about, but you're not resolving it here, at least not in a way that involves anyone leaving my office in a body bag. I do _not_ want to have to explain a homicide or three to the press, the board or Akira-kun, assuming he lives through the massive heart attack he'd have after hearing about it." She sent Saitou, Kenshin and Aoshi a withering look. "Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?"

"Yes," Kenshin and Aoshi immediately replied.

"Yes," Saitou muttered bad temperedly.

Tokio reached around, grabbed Okita by the ear and yanked him out from behind her, him yelping the whole time.

"Okita-san?" she asked.

"Ow ow ow ow ow!"

"That's not the answer I'm looking for," Tokio said, twisting.

"YEOW! Yes ma'am I understand!" he hollered.

Tokio nodded and let go, and Okita rubbed his abused ear.

"Thank you," she said primly.

"No problem," Saitou returned, a malicious gleam in his eyes as he smirked at Okita, who glared at him.

_You better hope she never grabs you by the balls like that, you bastard_, he thought viciously.

Someone knocked at Tokio's door.

"Yes?" Tokio called.

"Tokio-san, should I call for an ambulance for one of the officers?" Sae asked through the wood.

"No need of that," Tokio said dryly. "It's safe to come in."

The door opened and Sae breezed in, looking as unperturbed as ever, and all the officers took a moment to admire the woman's composure; either she really didn't think working in this loony bin was abnormal, or she was heavily sedated.

"You wanted me, Tokio-san?" she asked politely, hands clasped before her.

"The officers would like to ask you some questions about the mail," Tokio replied with a nod. "Shut the door, please."

Sae did as asked, then walked over to Tokio to stand beside her, turning to face the officers. She smiled politely and waited for the questioning to begin.

_Sedated_, the men all simultaneously decided.

"How do you get Tokio's mail?" Saitou asked. "She said you use a messenger?"

"Yes," Sae affirmed with a nod. "He drops off packages, and then the mail clerk distributes them to all the secretaries, and then we pass them on to our respective bosses."

"You don't seem very worried that Tokio-san got a threatening letter today," Okita said suspiciously, still rubbing his throbbing ear.

"It's not that unusual," Sae replied. "Though this is the first time the threat hasn't been from Enishi-san."

The officers raised their eyebrows and looked at Tokio.

"_Yukishiro-san_ sends you threats?" Aoshi asked incredulously.

"We send each other threats," Tokio corrected, not the least bit ruffled.

There was a long pause.

"You people are all insane," Saitou muttered at long last.

"Oh it's just sort of something we do to pass the time," Tokio assured. "He'll threaten to replace the powder in my compact with itching powder, or he'll threaten to install a sound system in my office that only plays "Short People" on permanent loop, stuff like that. And then I'll threaten to staple his tie to the side of his head—or I'll threaten to lock him in Kamatari's office with Kamatari. That one's always good."

"That's evil," Okita said, looking impressed.

"But effective," Tokio replied.

"Of course, those threats are usually delivered via email," Sae said thoughtfully. "It's faster." She smiled at the officers.

The officers were starting to rethink their original conclusion; maybe she really _did_ think it was supposed to be like this…?

"Where's the envelope?" Saitou asked, looking at Tokio.

She daintily lifted it up off her desk and held it out to Saitou. He took it and looked it over.

"It was mailed from Wu's area," he remarked, examining the post mark.

"That was not Wu," Tokio said with authority. "He may be a smirking, oily little bastard, but he's got more finesse than that."

"So you're convinced it was the Hirumas, then?" Kenshin asked.

"I sorta doubt the head of a crime syndicate would send me such an infantile letter of threat," Tokio dryly replied.

"Boss Lady makes a very valid argument," Okita said.

"But what was the purpose of threatening to blow up the museum?" Aoshi asked, baffled. "Where's the gain?"

Everyone shrugged.

The door opened and Enishi stood in the doorway, looking worn down and resigned.

"Why is the press staked out outside the museum?" he asked wearily.

The occupants of the room stared at him.

"'The press'?" Tokio echoed finally.

"Yes, Tokio, the press—those people who ask you questions and then report what you said to the masses, usually horribly misquoting you in the process."

"Don't be a jerk, Enishi," Tokio snapped. "I don't know what the press is doing outside the museum. I didn't call a press conference."

"Well neither did I," Enishi snapped, annoyance growing on his face. "So what the hell are they doing here?"

She looked at the officers; they all held up their hands in classic "Well-it-wasn't-_me_" fashion. A look at Sae yielded the same result. Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Gods above," she muttered. "The one time I need people to know what's going on, and no one can tell me anything."

"Oi," Enishi said suddenly, looking a little worried. "You don't think…they couldn't have heard about the bomb threat…could they?"

Tokio stared at him in growing horror.

"Oh please don't say that," she said. "In the name of all that's good and holy, please don't say that, because it's going to come true and then I'm going to have to find out who leaked it to the press and kill them."

"I thought you said no body bags," Saitou said, one eyebrow raised.

"I didn't want any of _you_ in body bags," Tokio replied, frowning. "Everyone else is fair game."

"Aw—she likes us," Okita said cheerfully.

"Perhaps if this one were to join you, Tokio-dono?" Kenshin volunteered. "To keep you from killing anyone? This one would hate to see you arrested."

"Yeah sure," Tokio said with a sigh. "Let's go—the lions are hungry." She rubbed her forehead, still frowning. "Gods, I hope Akira-kun isn't watching the TV today."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Fate, however, didn't much care what Tokio wanted either, though it was nicer about it than it was with Saitou.

Akira wasn't watching TV. Tomoe, however, was.

Actually, she was returning from the cafeteria, having just had breakfast, and she passed by the nurse's station just as the "special report" came on about a museum having received a bomb threat.

"Hey that's the same place that got robbed a few days back!" one of the nurses exclaimed upon seeing the museum in question.

"They didn't get robbed, they were broken into," another nurse corrected, putting the volume up on the small TV.

Tomoe, hearing this, stopped dead, turned and walked back to the nurse's station to watch the report, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"Takagi-san!" a reporter off screen called when Tokio came into view, a man of about her height, with red hair, next to her. "Takagi-san! What can you tell us about the bomb threat that was delivered to your museum this morning?"

"Is it true?" another reporter demanded, rather aggressively shoving a microphone in Tokio's direction. "Is it connected to the recent break-in?"

The Acting Director looked very tense and very unhappy. Oh, she was smiling politely and wearing what Akira called her "Press Face," but Tomoe had known the other woman too long not to notice the brittleness of the smile or the dread in the large eyes.

"Oh gods," Tomoe moaned, closing her eyes and hanging her head, as Tokio politely confirmed the story and attempted to continue but couldn't as the reporters went into an immediate frenzy. "Please, not this."

"If this one might interject?" came a man's voice, low and polite, that had Tomoe freezing, eyes snapping wide open.

_It can't be_, she thought as she slowly lifted her head and stared at the screen, even as the camera suddenly panned to the face of a man she knew very well.

"While it is true that the museum received a threat," he began, "it is the opinion of the Metropolitan Police Department that this threat is nothing more than a poor practical joke. The perpetrators will, however, be prosecuted to the full extent of the law—a threat, no matter how tasteless, is still a threat."

"Oh gods," Tomoe murmured, shaking a little. "Kenshin."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Now what?" Enishi asked.

He, Tokio and the officers were in the conference room. Tokio was seated at the head of the table, solemn and quiet. Enishi was seated on her left, Okita next to him; Aoshi was on her right. Kenshin and Saitou were standing by Tokio, Kenshin doing his best not to draw Enishi's notice, while Enishi appeared to have decided to ignore Kenshin's very existence.

"First order of business," Tokio said quietly, fingers threaded together tightly before her face, "is to find out who leaked the bomb threat to the press."

"And do what?" Aoshi asked, wondering if he actually wanted to know.

"Crucify the jackass," Tokio snarled.

"You'll get no complaints from me," Enishi said with a snort.

Tokio didn't reply verbally; she only jerked her head in curt acknowledgment.

"Second order of business is the display cases," she continued. "I asked Kamatari to go with you."

"No," Enishi said flatly. "There's no way in hell I'm going anywhere with that queen—_you_ go."

"I'm not in the mood for your crap, Enishi!" Tokio snapped, glaring at him. "Because any second now, Akira-kun or Tomoe-san is going to call me wondering what the hell is going on over here, and I still haven't figured out how I'm going to answer that!"

"Akira just had surgery yesterday," Enishi argued. "He's not gonna call you, you paranoid psycho—shit, he probably isn't even awake yet!"

Tokio abruptly reached out and grabbed him by the tie.

"But Tomoe-san is perfectly capable, you dumb ass!" she bellowed.

Saitou grabbed Tokio by the shoulders; Okita pried her fingers off Enishi's tie, and once it was safely out of her grasp, Saitou pressed her down into her seat.

"Choking Yukishiro isn't going to help," he said dryly.

"Like hell it won't," she muttered. "I'll feel _a lot_ better."

The phone sitting on the table suddenly began ringing, and Tokio groaned and slumped down in her seat, nearly disappearing under the table.

"Shoot me," she begged no one in particular. "Please, just shoot me."

Enishi rolled his eyes, leaned over and picked it up while trying to fix his tie one-handed.

"Hello?" he said. There was a long pause, and then his face suddenly went blank. "Oh. Uh-huh. Sure, I'll let her know. Thanks Sae."

He hung up the phone and Tokio groaned again and slumped down lower, finally slipping completely out of sight.

"I hate the world," she said lowly.

"And it hates you right back," Enishi said. "Sae says Katsura and Takasugi are here, and they want to speak to you. _Now_."

Tokio let out what sounded like a whimper from under the table.

"I don't wanna!" she wailed.

"Oh don't do this," Enishi said wearily. "I hate it when you throw temper tantrums."

"I'm not going!"

"Damn it Tokio," Enishi snapped. "Get up and be a man!"

"I'm not a man!"

"Yeah? Well you act like one—YEOW!" he suddenly yelped, jumping up from the table holding his left ankle. "She bit me!" he yelled. "She actually fucking _bit_ me!"

"Well you did call her a man," Okita pointed out mildly. "If I was her, I'd a bit you too."

"All right, I've had enough of this shit," Saitou announced, his impatience in full evidence. "Yukishiro, either you go buy the damn cases, or I beat you to death. Which do you prefer?"

Enishi stared at Saitou for a moment.

"I think I'm gonna go find Kamatari," he said, and limped out of the conference room.

Saitou then turned his attention to his coworkers.

"You three are going to figure out how the threat got leaked to the press." he said.

"Or?" Okita asked.

"I will shoot all three of you. In your respective, worthless asses."

"Well I'm convinced," Okita said, abruptly standing. "Shall we?" he said to Kenshin and Aoshi, both of whom nodded and they all immediately left the room.

Once the door was shut, Saitou dragged Tokio's chair back out of the way, crouched down, reached under the table and dragged her out by the arms, and she fought him the whole time.

"Quit that!" he barked. "Have some dignity, damn it!"

"I don't want dignity I want a bullet to the head right now!" she hollered.

Saitou rolled his eyes, then grunted and sighed when she punched him in the jaw.

"What was that for?" he asked wearily.

She glared at him, pouting and looking ready to cry.

"For making me come out," she muttered.

"And just what were you planning on doing? Hiding under the table the rest of the day?" he demanded.

"Maybe," she said with a sniff.

"Oh hell, don't cry," he muttered.

She took in a deep breath and let it out.

"I don't wanna see Katsura-san and Takasugi-san," she whimpered.

"I never figured you for a coward, Chiisai," he said.

"But they'll yell at me!" she wailed.

"Well don't you think it's about time someone yelled at you?" he snapped back. "You've yelled at everyone else."

"But I like Katsura-san and Takasugi-san," she said despondently.

"And they seemed to like you back, so they probably won't yell at you," Saitou reasoned impatiently. "Now get up off the floor, woman."

He tugged her to her feet and stood by as she brushed herself off and straightened her jacket—and the blue skirt.

He had noticed her attire immediately, but had refrained from comment or otherwise drawing any attention to it, since he didn't want to catch anymore shit from Okita and the others. But no one was around now, and he figured now was as good a time as any. Besides, it might take her mind off things.

"Very nice, by the way," he said, dropping his voice several octaves, and she froze. "You remembered to wear the skirt."

She flushed and cleared her throat.

"You asked," she replied, tugging at the skirt hem.

"Hm," was his reply, complete with wolfish grin. "So what're the odds I can get you to play hopscotch in it?"

"About the same as me getting you to wear a dress," she replied, sending him a warning look, and he sighed in exaggerated disappointment.

"Ah well," he said. "I suppose I can try again some other time."

"You're such a letch," she said.

"Am not," he replied mildly. "I just happen to like looking at you in a skirt."

"You have a skirt fetish," she decided, tapping her chin as she eyed him thoughtfully.

He grinned at her.

"Mm—more of a sexy librarian fetish," he replied. "You in a skirt and glasses does odd things to me, Chiisai."

She blushed furiously and whirled around and headed for the door.

"I have to see Katsura-san and Takasugi-san," she blurted, and he managed to keep from laughing—barely.

He followed along in her wake, eyeing her rear end as she walked, and she knew he was doing it.

"Stop that," she muttered as they neared her office; Sae was thankfully nowhere near her desk.

"Stop what?" he asked innocently.

"Ogling my butt."

"It's a very nice—" he began with a grin.

"Yes yes yes," she interrupted. "I remember. But it's inappropriate—oh geez, would you just walk in front of me?"

"Not on your life," he drawled. "I like the view from back here."

"Shh!"

She reached her office and stood in front of the closed door, nervous fingers fidgeting with her jacket buttons.

"You have to turn the knob," he said helpfully, and Tokio sent him a flat look.

"Don't be obnoxious," she said through gritted teeth. "I know it's asking a lot, but try."

"You should really just get it over with already," he recommended. "All you're doing is making it worse on yourself. They're not going to like being made to wait."

She frowned and turned back to the door, then turned back to him.

"I'll give you five hundred thousand yen to shoot me right now," she offered.

"No."

"Six hundred thousand."

"No."

"Seven?"

"Tokio get in the damn office," Saitou said in exasperation.

"Eight?" she tried.

"I'm not shooting you," he snapped, and she sent him a disgruntled look.

"Some public servant you are," she muttered, then drew in a deep breath, plastered a calm and serene look on her face, and opened the door to her office.

"Hello Katsura-san, Takasugi-san," she said with a polite bow for each man. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting—I was in the conference room with the officers."

"Are we that scary?" Takasugi asked, and Tokio paused, thrown off by the question.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked, confused, after a pause.

"I believe they may have heard your request, Tokio," Saitou murmured as he shut the door.

Tokio paled a little and her smile faltered ever so slightly.

"Heh heh," she weakly returned. "Heard that, did you?"

"We're not ogres, Tokio-san," Katsura chided gently.

Tokio sighed, shoulders slumping.

"I know," she said. She sent them resigned looks. "But considering why you two're here, can you honestly blame me for preferring to be shot?"

The two men exchanged considering glances.

"I suppose not," Katsura reluctantly agreed.

"I guess," Takasugi murmured uneasily.

The meeting didn't turn out bad at all, all things considered. Katsura and Takasugi had only come for the facts, which Tokio and Saitou supplied. Tokio was gently chastised for not having immediately called either man, which she apologized for. They accepted her apology with good grace:

"It's all right," Katsura said, raising a hand. "Not calling us aside, you handled the situation admirably."

Tokio smiled.

"Thank you Katsura-san."

"Don't worry about the board," Takasugi added. "We'll take care of them. Just figure out who sent the threat, and concentrate on getting the exhibit back up. Good deal?"

"Great deal," Tokio fervently replied. "If I never see Shimada-san ever again, it'll be too soon."

Katsura smiled faintly; Takasugi let out a roar of laughter that had tears leaking out of his eyes.

"Atta girl!" he said. "I can't stand the fat bastard myself."

The men said their farewells and left soon after, asking Saitou to keep them posted on developments on the case.

"Tokio-san has enough to worry about without reporting to us periodically," Katsura explained, and Tokio sent him a grateful look.

"I'm sending you each three jugs of the best saké money can buy for New Year's," she promised, and Takasugi grinned broadly.

"Heh—like I said, you're a good kid, Tokio-kun," he said approvingly.

She walked them out, Saitou at her side.

"See?" he chided once the men had passed through the doors. "You overreacted for nothing."

She sighed. "I know," she murmured, absently cracking her knuckles. "But I hate to disappoint them. They always stick up for me—when Akira-kun first offered me up for the position of Associate Director, the board was opposed. They thought a nineteen-year-old _girl_ fresh out of a community college wasn't up to snuff. But Katsura-san and Takasugi-san were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, and they talked the other members into voting in favor of me. I owe them a lot."

"Hm." Saitou glanced down at her and watched her in silence for several moments.

She looked very unhappy, despite the relative success of her meeting with the Chairman and Vice Chairman. And he had not missed the touch of resentment in her voice when she'd discussed the board's initial disapproval of her being appointed Associate Director—it had been obvious in the manner in which she'd said "girl."

"You feel like soba again tonight?" he asked idly, returning his attention to the two men getting into a chauffeured car.

Tokio looked up at him.

"Soba?" She smiled. "Is that your cure-all, Inspector?"

He shrugged, and she shook her head, still smiling.

"Yeah, sure," she said. "I'd like soba again tonight."

He nodded.

"I'll be by for you at eight."

"I may run a little late," she warned.

He shrugged again. "I don't mind," he replied, then looked down at her and grinned. "As long as I get to watch you walk around in that skirt, of course."

Tokio blushed.

"Letch."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 10: Dinner and A Movie:_

"Of wha—your family!" she sputtered. "Your parents! Siblings, if you have any! Friends!"

"Why do I need pictures of them?" he asked. "I know what they look like."

---

"Saitou-san," she said tightly. "I _will_ throw my stapler at your head."

"Ah—but will you _hit_ me?" he replied.

---

"Look what you made me do!" she wailed.

"Well I didn't tell you to throw the damn thing at me!" he shot back.

"You ducked!"

"I'm not stupid!"

---

"You say things like that to mortify me, don't you!" she accused.

He shrugged.

"I need a hobby, right?" he returned.


	10. Dinner and A Movie

**A/N:** Since I haven't gotten very far into the anime and thus am not sure how closely it follows the manga, I'm mostly depending on the manga for people's backgrounds (like nobody hadn't figured that out already…). Check out maigo-chan's most excellent online _RuroKen_ translation for details if you need to. And even if you don't. : ).

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada. Again. I'm gettin' good at this….

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Saitou's family: I'm using his parents and siblings' historical names, only I'm not leaving the family name "Yamaguchi," because then I'd have to explain why his last name was different from his family's, and this story is already going to be long enough without adding new complications. Good deal?

Ginza: "the Times Square of Tokyo," as one website I visited described it, and looking at pictures of the place, you'd be hard pressed to disagree. This is the place to go for serious shopping. It's also home to the best galleries and museums in Japan. Have a browse at this website if you're curious: www(dot)galenfrysinger(dot)com(backslash)ginza(underscore)tokyo(underscore)japan(dot)htm

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

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_**Chapter Ten: Dinner and A Movie**_

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Okay. So this hadn't been quite what she'd been expecting.

But she'd cut out her tongue before she complained—after all, she was in his apartment.

Tokio was perched on the counter in Saitou's kitchen, watching him make dinner—soba, as promised. She'd always wondered just how domestic he actually was, because as far as she knew (not that she'd ever gotten up the guts to ask, of course) he'd always lived alone. And judging from the condition of his apartment, he was just domestic enough.

His apartment was Spartan; there was very little in the way of furniture aside from what was strictly necessary, and there wasn't anything hanging on the walls. She was curious about his bedroom, but she didn't have the nerve to poke around, so she contented herself with what she could see: the kitchen/dining area, and the living room; the door to his bedroom was shut.

It was a clean and neat place, as far as she could tell, but she'd expected nothing less from a man who never presented himself with a hair out of place.

"Have you been living here long?" she asked, absently tapping the counter edge she was holding onto.

"Six years," he answered, and Tokio's eyebrows rose in surprise, fingers pausing.

"_Six_ years?" she asked, not quite able to believe she'd heard correctly.

"Uh-huh."

"But…well…is most of your stuff in storage?" she asked.

"No."

Tokio stared at him, incredulous.

"This is it?" she demanded after a moment. "But what about stuff for the walls?"

He shrugged. "Don't have any."

"Well, but, what about pictures!" she protested.

"Of what?"

"Of wha—your family!" she sputtered. "Your parents! Siblings, if you have any! Friends!"

"Why do I need pictures of them?" he asked. "I know what they look like."

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"That's not the point," she said with a sigh. "It makes the place homey."

He shrugged again. "I just sleep and change here," he said.

Tokio sighed and shook her head.

He'd come by the museum for her at eight, as he'd said he would, and just as she'd predicted, she'd been running late, this time dealing with Enishi and Kamatari.

Tokio hadn't gotten the particulars, but she gathered that the argument between the two had started when Kamatari had said something to Enishi that the latter hadn't particularly taken to—and knowing Kamatari, pretty much anything he'd said to Enishi would have sparked an argument.

When Saitou had ambled into her office without knocking, she was sitting behind her desk, rubbing her forehead, eyes closed and frowning, and Enishi and Kamatari were in the middle of a yelling match that had nothing to do with what had originally sparked the argument.

She thought, anyway.

Abruptly, Tokio opened her eyes, grabbed the first object she saw—which happened to be a gold Buddha paperweight Anji had given her a while back—and chucked it at the two men, who immediately scrambled out of the way; they weren't as intent on arguing as they'd seemed, it appeared.

"Now that I have your attention," she said agreeably.

"You almost hit me!" Kamatari said, frowning at her.

"That's what I wanted to do, _almost_ hit you," Tokio replied. "Hitting you and knocking you out wouldn't have resolved the argument, as much as it would have made me feel better."

"You should learn how to duck," Enishi said smugly, and Kamatari glared at him.

"I wouldn't be so full of myself, Enishi—you only just learned how to yourself," Tokio dryly returned, and it was Kamatari's turn to look smug.

"Now then children, returning to the issue under discussion," Tokio said, sitting back in her chair.

"'Discussion'," Enishi repeated with a snort.

"I'm feeling generous," Tokio replied. "Anyway, I know you two have your little issues with each other, and I understand that. But in return, I ask that you two understand that I have certain issues of my own. And what might these issues be, you ask? Well, chief among them is that I would like to get the exhibit up before the end of the year, which is two months away and fast approaching. To do this, I need display cases, and this is where you two come in.

"Now. The only way I'm going to get my display cases, is if you two put aside your petty differences and work together. And if you should find this difficult, then I will be forced to kill both of you in a very gruesome and unpleasant manner. Have I made myself clear?"

"Uh…sure," Kamatari said.

"Right, yeah," Enishi said at the same time.

Tokio beamed at them.

"Excellent!" she chirped brightly. Her happy expression turned into a dark, withering glare. "Now get the hell out."

The two beat a hasty retreat, murmuring a rushed greeting to Saitou, who'd ensconced himself on her couch. He bobbed his head in acknowledgment of their greetings, then turned his attention to Tokio.

"I'm impressed," he remarked.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" Her tone of voice implied she was pretty sure he was going to say something obnoxious. And how right she was:

"You didn't yell at all."

"You're annoying," she muttered, and he smirked and rose and ambled over to her desk.

"You like it," he taunted. "Little masochist."

She sent him a flat look, and he chuckled and stopped in front of her desk, hands in his pockets.

"You ready?" he asked.

"Just a few more things to take care of, and then we'll go," she said. "So get comfortable on the couch."

"How long?"

"Less than an hour, assuming the fates are feeling kind or merciful."

"Ah—so we're not getting out of here tonight, are we?"

She let out a sigh of exasperation.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're depressing?"

"Okita-kun makes a habit of informing me, yes."

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the couch.

"Sit," she ordered. "You're distracting."

He smirked.

"Really," he drawled.

"Saitou-san," she said tightly. "I _will_ throw my stapler at your head."

"Ah—but will you _hit_ me?" he replied.

"Would you care to find out?" she asked, hand already on her projectile of choice.

"Not particularly," he said, but made no move to leave his spot.

"Well?" she snapped.

"You didn't say please, Chiisai," he said with a devious twinkle in his eye. "If I have to be polite, you do too."

She sighed impatiently.

"Fine fine," she said irritably. "Saitou-san, will you _please_ sit down and wait for me to finish?"

"Much better," he said, tilting his head ever so slightly. "And since you asked so nicely, I'd be happy to."

And so saying, he turned and walked back to the couch and once more ensconced himself on it.

"How charitable of you," Tokio said dryly.

Saitou didn't get the chance to reply; Sae stuck her head in:

"Tokio-san? Yukyuzan-san is waiting to see you."

Tokio blinked.

"Who?" she asked, obviously perplexed.

"Yukyuzan-san," Sae returned.

"Who is Yukyu—OH!" Tokio abruptly stood. "Anji-san! Send him in!"

Sae nodded and disappeared, and then Anji appeared in the doorway, smiling faintly. Tokio sent him a deeply apologetic look.

"Anji-san, I'm so sorry," she said, but he only waved a hand.

"Don't worry about it Tokio-san," he said, his smile widening. "It's all right. You never call me by my family name—I'd hardly expect you to remember it."

"Still," Tokio began, but Anji only waved it off again.

"Really, it's fine," he said. "You said you wanted to know when we could start repainting the exhibit."

Tokio nodded, and gestured for him to enter the room and take a seat in front of her desk, which he did, after closing the door and saying hello to Saitou, who noticed the man was holding a large paper bag and idly wondered what was in it.

"Once all the new light fixtures have been installed, and the cameras have been replaced," Anji began, "I'm going to have to take my workers through and patch up a few walls."

"WHAT?" Tokio sent him a horrified look. "There are HOLES in the walls?"

"Yes ma'am."

"How? When? I never saw a damn hole in the entire exhibit!"

"Oh they came after the break-in," Anji assured her. "During the clean-up process—not the preliminary one you spearheaded, the one after it."

"I _hate_ my assistants," Tokio muttered after a long pause.

"Let me know when you want that taken care of," Saitou reminded her lazily.

Tokio sighed and decided not answering him was better than giving in and possibly sanctioning a mass homicide.

"Are they big holes?" she asked Anji, half-cringing.

"No ma'am," Anji said quickly. "They aren't very big at all, I promise. There's just a lot of them, but it's nothing a little spackle can't cure."

Tokio's shoulders slumped and she sent the mess of papers on her desk a despondent look.

"Okay," she said with a sigh. She looked up at him. "Let me know what you need, and I'll get it for you."

"Oh that won't be necessary," he said immediately.

"Of course it will," Tokio snapped irritably. "You mentioned you were low on supplies a week back."

Anji sighed softly.

"Yes ma'am," he said quietly.

"Be more assertive, Anji-san," Tokio said, voice kinder now. "Kamatari-chan's always in here bitching and moaning that we don't let him spend enough money, but I never hear a peep out of you. You've just as much right to ask for what you need as _Her Highness_."

Anji smiled faintly at her.

"Tsubaki says the same thing," he admitted.

"Well then I'd say we have a point, Tsubaki-san and I," Tokio replied, smiling in return. "Now get me a list of what you need as soon as you can, and I'll make sure you get everything on it. Deal?"

"Yes ma'am," he said.

"Anything else to tell me?" she asked.

"No ma'am, that's all."

"Okay then. Go home Anji-san, and enjoy the reprieve—in a very short while, you'll be too tired to enjoy Tsubaki-san's company."

"Yes ma'am," he said with a nod, rising. He stepped forward and set the bag on her desk. "This is for you," he added. "From all of us."

Tokio stared at the bag, then looked up at Anji and slowly smiled.

"Is it…?"

Anji nodded, and Tokio squealed and opened the bag and looked into it.

"Oh wow! You guys got me butterscotch!"

Anji laughed. "You mentioned that you really liked it at the last office party, and Tsubaki said you deserved it after all the awful stuff that's happened this week."

Tokio beamed up at the big man.

"You guys're the best," she murmured, sincere. "I'm gonna give those kids of yours so many goodies next time the orphanage comes for a field trip! And Tsubaki-san is getting perfume, and you're getting a vacation so you can go on one of your Zen retreats, I promise—"

Anji laughed again, though he was blushing now.

"Tokio-san," he said, abashed.

"I insist—" Tokio gasped, looking into the bag. "These are from that candy store in Ginza that I like! That's it, I'm buying you guys a new place!"

At this point, Saitou had gotten up and walked over to investigate, curious and also a little suspicious, wondering just what Anji was doing buying her candy. Yeah, the guy'd said it was a gift, but Saitou didn't buy that crap for a second.

Tokio reached into the bag and produced a heaping handful of candy, which she held out to Anji.

"Here," she said, standing and taking hold of one of the larger man's hand and shoving the candy into it. "Give some to the kids. Make sure you save some for you and Tsubaki-san, okay?"

Anji smiled and bobbed his head.

"Yes ma'am. Thank you Tokio-san."

"No, thank you and your wonderful wonderful girlfriend and all those wonderful wonderful kids!" Tokio returned, beaming.

Anji chuckled and bowed.

"You're welcome."

"Now go home and tell them I love them all!"

"Yes ma'am."

Anji said good-bye and good-night to Saitou, who grunted and suspiciously eyed the bag Tokio was holding.

She happily plucked a piece of candy from the bag and began unwrapping it.

"Stop," Saitou ordered, grabbing her wrist. "Don't tell me you're going to eat that."

"Uh, duh," Tokio replied, dropping the candy into her other hand and deftly getting it out of the wrapper.

"Tokio," Saitou growled, his other hand shooting out to grab her free wrist.

She managed to evade his hand and shoved the candy into his mouth.

"You know, you could have just asked if you wanted a piece," she said conversationally. "I'm willing to share."

He glared at her.

"This could have the gods know what in it!" he said.

"Anji-san is the sweetest man on the planet and how dare you say and think such awful things about him!" Tokio said, offended. "He always gives me some kind of candy for New Year's and my birthday!"

"Why?" Saitou asked sourly.

"Because he's thoughtful and sweet," Tokio replied, grabbing another piece and unwrapping it and stuffing it in her mouth before he could try to keep her from eating it. "And he likes me too much to try to poison me." She sighed and sat back in her chair. "This is the best candy in the world."

"If you say so," Saitou said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You should talk to Okita. He has something of a candy fetish."

"Really?" Tokio looked thoughtful. "I should save him some of these, then."

"Are you done?" he asked with a sigh.

"In a minute, in a minute," she assured. "I just have to sign some things that Sae has to make sure get out first thing tomorrow morning, and then we can go. Okay?"

"Feh."

"I'll take that as a yes. Now sit down on the couch like a good little Wolf and wait patiently."

"Wolves are not particularly well-behaved animals," Saitou said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well the one standing before me had better behave, or he's going to have problems," Tokio shot back, and he got the hint and retreated back to the couch, still sucking on the candy.

True to her word, she signed several papers, then called Sae in and relinquished them to her, with the order that they were to be sealed and delivered into the hands of the messenger tomorrow morning, or it would be Tokio's sad duty to toss Sae out on her ear. Sae only smiled and assured her boss there would be no tossing of anyone out on their ears tomorrow, and Tokio smiled and gave her a few pieces of butterscotch and told her to go home.

"You're cracked," Saitou announced when Sae had left, unwrapping one of the candies and humming to herself.

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Tokio replied, shutting down her computer. "So where's dinner tonight? Another soba stand?"

"Something like that," Saitou returned, rising. He ambled over to her desk, reached into the bag and took a piece of candy. Tokio sent him a smug look.

"I'm hungry wench," he growled. "Now hurry the hell up."

"And cranky too," she observed, taking the bag and setting aside a handful in her desk drawer. "For Okita-san, tomorrow," she explained, when he raised an eyebrow.

"Uh-huh," was the dry, skeptical reply.

"Why would I put them in my desk drawer if I have a candy jar on my desk?" she asked, exasperated.

"You're not as generous as you say you are."

"You seriously need to stop with the paranoia," Tokio commented, taking her purse out of the bottom drawer of her desk and shutting it with her foot, then rising.

"My paranoia is the reason I'm still alive," Saitou replied.

"Well that has to be it, because it certainly isn't your _winning_ personality."

"Oh nice, take a cheap shot at the guy who's—very generously, I might add—feeding you tonight."

Tokio paused and cocked her head, expression thoughtful.

"You're right—save the potshots for after dinner."

"Atta girl," Saitou dryly remarked, expression amused.

They left her office and Tokio said good-night to a few employees still there, and also told them to go the hell home already, the museum was closed, which made all of them smile—in amusement, but also in palpable relief that she was in such a much better mood.

They walked a few blocks, until they got to the residential district, both of them eating the candy.

"Saitou-san?" Tokio asked after they had entered the residential district. "There aren't any restaurants or stands here. The closest thing is a grocery."

"I know," he said.

"So we're going to the grocery," she said when he didn't continue.

"No."

"Then...?"

"We're going to that apartment complex over there," he said, lazily gesturing up ahead.

"What's over there?"

"Dinner."

That was about the point it dawned on her that he was taking her to his dwelling, and that was also about the time she shut up and became very interested in the dwindling contents of her bag.

Oh yeah, and the mantra "Don't freak out" began running frantic circles in her head right about then too.

Turned out there wasn't much to freak out about once they reached his apartment on the eighth floor.

"You really have the oddest preferences," Saitou said, and Tokio looked over at him.

"Huh?" was her intelligent sounding reply.

"Desks, tables, counters—you'll sit on any flat surface you find, won't you?"

"Do I bother you here?" she asked sweetly.

"I'm making an observation," Saitou replied. "It's what I do. I inspect and make observations."

Tokio smiled faintly.

"Yeah? Maybe you should quit inspecting my legs and concentrate on dinner."

"Only a complete and total idiot can ruin soba, and it seems like a terrible shame to ignore your legs when they're so close by."

"Pervert," she said in a sing-song voice.

"I will purposely screw up dinner if you keep making insinuations, Tokio."

Tokio gasped in mock horror.

"Mean!" she said.

He smiled ever so slightly.

"Gods, I knew letting you eat half a bag of candy was a bad idea," he murmured.

"You helped," she pointed out, and he snorted.

"Hardly."

He was still in his policeman's uniform, though he'd discarded his coat, hat and tie, rolled up the sleeves and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, and also removed his badge, gloves and wallet, all of which he'd placed in the entry on the little shelf above the key rack—the _one_ thing he had hanging on the walls.

It was strange to see him like that; she'd often teased him about how he always made sure nothing was out of place on his uniform. She understood it, though—her father and brother were policemen, and they had the same obsession with making sure their uniforms were always clean, crisp and presentable. It was cute, how much pride they took in their uniforms, in their jobs, and Saitou was no different.

Well, he probably wouldn't have smiled if she'd told him it was cute; it was much more likely he'd snap at her that he was no such vile thing.

Cute and Saitou didn't even belong in the same zip code, let alone the same sentence.

He surprised her by kissing her, and though she was a little startled, she wasn't at all adverse to the attention.

"Off the counter," he murmured, and it took her a moment to figure out what he'd said.

When she did, she sent him a disgruntled look, and he let out a snort of amusement.

"Off, little girl," he said again, giving the side of her thigh a firm pat before he moved away, and she stuck her tongue out at him and slid off.

"Don't stick your tongue out at me unless you intend to use it, Chiisai," he said dryly.

"And then he wonders why I call him a pervert," she muttered while she set the table.

Dinner was again a comfortable affair, and Tokio was secretly surprised that Saitou had figured out, with relatively little prompting, that the idea of being on a formal date with him scared her witless. She also wondered if he felt at all insulted by that, though judging from his general demeanor, she didn't think so.

"So," she said, setting her flatware aside and cocking her head. "If last night was a date, what's this?"

He pursed his lips and considered her.

"Oh, I suppose we could stretch it and call this another date," he returned wryly, "even though I didn't technically take you anywhere."

"You took me to your apartment," she pointed out. "That's somewhere."

"Indeed," he said, once more employing the "pervert voice," and Tokio cleared her throat.

"I really hate it when you do that," she said.

"I know," he said, still using the "pervert voice."

"I'll leave," she threatened, and he sent her a smirk.

"Really?" he drawled, and there was something about his tone of voice that had her watching him suspiciously.

"I won't hesitate to hurt you if you try something funny," she warned him, and Saitou chuckled.

"You have some very violent tendencies, Chiisai."

She shot him a disgruntled look but decided not to comment on the nickname this time.

"I do _not_ have violent tendencies," she replied stiffly. "I'm just not afraid of protecting myself when I feel like I'm in danger."

"Well you've nothing to fear from me."

By some miracle of the gods, Tokio was able to keep from laughing in disbelief; she was about as safe with him as a chicken coop full of hens was safe with a fox.

…And there was something disturbingly appropriate about that simile that she didn't care to explore.

"So why'd your father put you in martial arts?" he asked, sitting back in his seat.

"Because up until my brother was born, I was his surrogate son," she replied, and Saitou paused, looking faintly surprised.

"Brother?" he echoed.

"Uh-huh." She brightened. "Oh, do you know him? He's a policeman too. But not in Bunkyo—he's in Nerima Ward, like my father."

Tokio had never seen Saitou flabbergasted. She decided it was an interesting look for him:

"Your _father_ is _Takagi Kojuro_ of Nerima Ward?" he asked incredulously.

"Yup," Tokio replied, smiling faintly.

"The Takagi Kojuro who tackled a would-be assassin to the ground six years ago in the middle of the park after chasing him on foot for three blocks? The Takagi Kojuro who regularly takes down purse-snatchers and convenience store robbers like he's the Bionic Man even though he's almost ready for retirement? Takagi Kojuro, the Demon of Nerima Ward? _That_ Takagi Kojuro?"

"That's my papa," Tokio said fondly.

Saitou stared at her, then abruptly rose and walked into the kitchen.

"What?" she asked, surprised by the reaction.

"I need a drink," he muttered.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, confused.

"Are you _serious_? Your father's the most decorated man in any precinct in Tokyo! Shit, he took a bullet for Kondou!"

"Papa said that was divine intervention," she said authoritatively. "Right place at the right time."

Saitou didn't reply; he'd grabbed a beer from the fridge, opened it and was currently drinking it down like water.

Tokio watched him and tried to hide her disappointment; she loved her father and was very proud of him and the reputation he'd earned, but the reaction was always the same when men found out. It was a large part of the reason she was still single—or as Kamatari liked to put it, "desperately and hopelessly alone." He was highly respected within his own ward and in others, and he had friends everywhere…and the merest mention of any familial connection to Kojuro usually spelled doom for Tokio's love life, because most men didn't want to come within ten feet of her after learning that her father was the Demon of Nerima Ward. Even when she'd been in high school, getting a date had been nearly impossible; Akira or Kamatari had been her "dates."

Her father's reputation had ensured that she not have sex until she was twenty-five, and even then, she'd had to lie by omission, until the guy had found out and run away screaming—literally.

She'd hoped it wouldn't faze Saitou. He'd seemed relatively hard to rattle, and he didn't come across as the type to be easily discouraged.

Well, so much for that.

She fiddled absently with her flatware, staring down at the table top, waiting for the inevitable "It's-not-you-it's-me (and-my-goal-to-live-to-a-ripe-old-age)" line before being unceremoniously shown the door.

"That explains a lot," Saitou said finally.

Tokio rose and turned to him and smiled politely and bowed.

"Thank you for dinner," she said respectfully, suddenly too humiliated by the idea of his kicking her out to wait for him to do it. "I can see myself out."

Then she padded over to the entry and picked up her purse.

"OI!" he bellowed suddenly, making her jump three feet into the air and look over her shoulder to find him towering over her and looking distinctly pissed. "And just where in the seven hells do you think you're going?"

"Well…home," Tokio said, as if that should have been obvious.

"Why?"

She blinked.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Why?" he repeated.

"Well…I…don't you want me to?"

"Of course not you twit! What the hell made you think that?"

She blinked again.

"But…wh…I…because," she finally decided on.

"Because what?" he demanded.

"My father's Takagi Kojuro."

"Mine's Saitou Yuusuke. So what?"

She blinked yet again.

"Would you quit that damn it?" he snapped, and she flinched. "It's distracting."

"Sorry," she replied.

"Are you insinuating that I'm supposed to be afraid of your old man?"

"Well…most men are."

He stared at her, then sighed, and looked at the roof.

"Gods deliver me," he muttered. Then he reached out and grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back into the dining area.

"I'm a little too old to be intimidated by a woman's father," he said dryly. "That might have worked when I was sixteen, but I'm thirty now—give me some credit, huh?"

"You didn't seem very happy, though," she protested.

"Well of course not woman, the man's even less sociable than I am."

"At least you're aware of your own deficiencies," she murmured, and he shot her a withering look.

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

"Well I just assumed, since you turned kinda green when you heard who my father was—"

"I did _not_ turn green," Saitou snapped.

Tokio sent him a reproachful look.

"You did too," she said.

"I did _not_."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did n—this is ridiculous!" he shouted, throwing his hands up into the air. "What are we, six?"

"You did too," she muttered, then smiled winningly when he glared at her.

"I was just…surprised," he said with measured calm.

"You needed a drink," she said dryly. "I think you were a little more than surprised."

"I said I was surprised, damn it!" he snapped. His face twisted into a snarl and then he turned and went back to the fridge. "I need another fucking drink," he muttered.

"Look, don't worry about it," she assured, affecting an understanding tone. "You wouldn't be the first guy. I'm used to it."

"I am not scared of your father!"

"Yes, well, you've never met him."

"STOP TALKING!" he bellowed, and Tokio stared at him in surprise.

"Sit!" he barked, and she immediately did as he ordered, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Since you won't listen when I'm talking _to_ you, I'll talk _at_ you," he said tightly, glaring at her. "And if that doesn't work either, we're going to have serious problems. Understood?"

She nodded slowly.

"I," he said, pointing to himself, "am the Wolf of Bunkyo Ward. I give men nightmares. I make them shit themselves in terror—and that's just the men I work with. I've already told you it takes a lot to terrify me. One cranky old man with a bad attitude—"

"Don't talk about my papa like that!" she interrupted furiously.

"I said stop talking!" he bellowed.

Tokio promptly threw her purse at his head; he ducked and it sailed harmlessly over him to slap the cabinets before plopping to the floor and vomiting its contents all over the tiles.

"Look what you made me do!" she wailed.

"Well I didn't tell you to throw the damn thing at me!" he shot back.

"You ducked!"

"I'm not stupid!"

"You're supposed to let me hit you," she snapped, getting up and beginning to collect her things.

"I'm supposed to _what_?" he asked incredulously, watching her.

"You're supposed to let me hit you," she repeated, grabbing her checkbook. "Now, because you decided to duck, my crap is all over the floor of your kitchen!"

"Well if you'd zip the damn thing shut like I keep telling you to—ow!" he yelped, more surprised than hurt, when she threw her checkbook at his arm and it connected with a stinging slap. He frowned at her as he absently rubbed the spot and decided he needed to watch her a little more closely when she was upset and could get her hands on things to chuck at him—next time, it might be something more substantial than a checkbook, like a frying pan.

Wait a minute…she was in the kitchen…and he had a frying pan (somewhere…he _thought_)….

It occurred to him that his best bet was to get her away from his meager collection of potentially coma-inducing cookware before it occurred to her that she could throw it at him. Which meant gathering up her "crap," as she'd so eloquently put it. So he leaned down and picked up her checkbook, and whatever else of hers he saw.

"You really need to learn to let people finish talking before you fly off the handle," he said, knowing that this probably was not the smartest thing to do (which would have been to run), but unable to keep quiet any longer. "I wasn't insulting your father, I was trying to make a point."

"Papa is _not_ cranky and he does _not_ have a bad attitude," she frostily replied.

Saitou snorted.

"And I'm a sweetheart," he said sarcastically, and Tokio whirled around, arm ready to toss her (very) thick wallet at his face.

He immediately drew back his own arm and got ready to fire what he was holding.

"I swear to the gods above I'll throw your crap right back at you," he warned.

Tokio watched him, then burst out laughing. Saitou stared at her.

_I knew it—she **is** screwy_, he thought.

"What," he asked, pretty sure he didn't want to know, "is so funny?"

"Have you looked at what you're holding?" she asked when she was finally able to form a coherent sentence.

With more than a little misgiving, Saitou looked back at what he'd been ready to throw at her, and found himself holding her checkbook, pen, pocket calculator…and two slender objects in lavender wrappers.

He'd been about to throw tampons at her.

Saitou hung his head and let out a long-suffering sigh, and Tokio began laughing again.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Eventually, Saitou was able to convince Tokio he really wasn't scared of her father, or intimidated (and he wasn't, though he was a smidge concerned, because he'd heard the old man was a hard sell, and Saitou didn't exactly have really great people skills to begin with).

"I'm impressed," he said, and she sent him a look like she was trying very hard not to laugh at him again. He glared at her in response. "I am, damn it! I'm impressed!"

"Okay," she soothed, "okay. You're impressed. I believe you."

"Don't patronize me."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she said dramatically, even going so far as to put a hand against her chest.

"And don't make fun of me either."

She smiled at him, then leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"Of course not," she said, and he sniffed.

"Fine. I suppose I forgive you then."

She laughed in response, and he smiled faintly, glad she wasn't throwing things at him anymore.

They ended up in the living room; he sat on the fold-out couch he'd had to buy when his older brother had gotten tossed out of his house (they'd roomed together for a _very_ long year while he worked things out with his wife), and watched in amusement as she played with the DVD player his older brother had given him to make up for being such a pain in the ass for a year.

"You ever use this?" she asked, pressing a button and then letting out a small noise of surprised delight when the disk tray slid open. "Oh yay! It did what I wanted!"

He let out a snort of laughter.

"Not really," he said, leaning back and resting his arm along the back of the couch. "I'm usually working."

"Boring," she teased, sending him a smile over her shoulder.

"Well that's obviously not a problem for you, Chiisai," he lazily replied.

She sighed, shaking her head, then turned her attention to his rather sad DVD collection.

"Watcha got?" she asked, more to herself than to him. He raised a suspicious eyebrow when she started snickering.

"What?" he asked warily.

She turned, with a smile of what was best described as exasperated amusement on her face, holding the case of a period film.

"All you have are Kurosawa Akira's movies, Saitou-san," she said.

"I happen to like Kurosawa's movies," he said, offended.

Her smile got bigger.

"Okay, okay, don't get all upset," she said, opening the case and lifting the DVD out. "I like his movies too. I was practically raised on them—Papa's big on the samurai movies."

So that was one point of common interest.

Was it possible to stretch a discussion of Kurosawa Akira's movies into a whole evening's worth of conversation…?

Tokio's plopping down onto the couch next to him brought him out of his musings. She poked his stomach and he flinched in reflex.

"Still not that squishy, huh?" she observed. She shrugged. "Oh well."

She snuggled down against him until her head was pillowed on his stomach; he watched the top of her head in amusement.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked wryly.

"I guess," she replied. "I'd be more comfortable if you were squishier."

"So I've heard," he returned. "I'll see what I can do about that. I haven't had much practice being someone's pillow."

"Hm."

They watched the movie in silence. Or rather, he did; when the end credits rolled and he looked down, he saw Tokio conked out and rolled his eyes.

"Of course," he muttered. He gently shook her hip, where he'd moved his hand to from the back of the couch midway through the movie. "Chiisai. Oi. Wake up. Come on."

"I saw the end," she murmured.

"You did not, you liar," he shot back.

"Well it doesn't matter, 'cause I've seen this one before."

"Wake up."

"Mean," she muttered, sleepily rubbing her eyes. She yawned and turned over, head now pillowed by his lap and his hand now resting on her stomach. "What time is it?"

He shrugged.

"Hell if I know."

"Don't you have a watch?"

"No."

"Do too," she accused, grabbing his left hand and pointing to the watch on his wrist.

"Well whaddaya know, I do," he dryly replied. "And look at that, you've got one too." he added, taking hold of her right wrist and tapping the watch around it with his index finger.

"Oh," she said sheepishly. "Whoops."

He raised an eyebrow; she sent him a small smile.

"Can I have my arm back?" she asked.

"Hm…I'll think about it," he replied, and she rolled her eyes, then reached up and grabbed his left wrist again and turned it so she could see the face of his watch. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"I have to go home," she said, letting go of him and sitting up.

"Or I could offer you my hospitality for the night," Saitou said with a faint, wolfish grin, and she cleared her throat, cheeks pink.

"Yes well," she said primly, standing and smoothing down her skirt. "I wouldn't want to put you out."

"Oh you wouldn't," he drawled.

Tokio recalled his threat at the train station last night:

"_Go on, before they leave your ass behind. Because if they do, you'll be going home with me tonight, and neither one of us is sleeping on the couch."_

"I bet," she muttered. "That's very generous of you, Saitou-san, but I really ought to get ho—oh!"

Tokio blinked, finding herself sitting on Saitou's lap.

"That's the fourth time tonight you've called me that. Don't you think we're rather past 'Saitou-san', Chiisai?" he lazily inquired, one eyebrow raised as he waited for an answer.

"Uhm…yes?" she replied, watching him with wide eyes.

He looked faintly amused.

"Good answer," he said, mouth curving up into a half-smirk. "Now, do you remember my first name?"

"Yes," she said. "Look, Sai—Hajime," she corrected with a sigh when he raised his eyebrow higher. "Uhm…could I maybe stand up? Or sit on the couch?"

"Not comfortable?" he asked innocently, and proceeded to bounce one of his legs. Tokio immediately grabbed hold of his shoulder and the knee of the leg that was moving.

"Not particularly," she replied, and he chuckled lowly.

"Gonna remember my first name, Chiisai?"

"Yes."

He inclined his head and leaned forward and kissed her, then let her scramble out of his lap, and then he lazily rose and rotated his shoulders.

"All right, get your things together and I'll walk you to the train station," he offered, and she bobbed her head and padded out of the room.

He ambled over to the TV and turned it and the DVD player off, then turned off the lights and strolled out of the living room, hands in his pockets.

She'd already shrugged into her jacket and was in the process of stepping into her heels, purse and bag of candy in hand.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, looking up at him and smiling.

He gave a short nod, then ambled over to the entry, got into his shoes, then grabbed his keys and wallet from the key rack, and they left his apartment.

"So are you still taking karate?" he asked conversationally.

"I quit a year ago," she said, shaking her head. "Not enough time."

"The exhibit again?"

"Uh-huh."

"You ever think maybe it's cursed?"

"Bite your tongue!"

He chuckled.

"All right, all right," he soothed. "Just wondering out loud. Seems like it's been more of a trial than anything."

Tokio sighed gloomily.

"No kidding," she muttered, and he slid one of his hands out of his pockets and draped his arm over her shoulders, bringing her closer.

"By the way," he said, "we want to do a walk-through tomorrow."

"A walk-through?" she asked, looking up at him, and he nodded.

"We were looking over the photos today, and there's something weird about the whole set-up."

"Like what?"

"Like maybe they didn't start at the beginning."

She frowned thoughtfully, then looked back up at him, surprised.

"You mean they didn't start destroying stuff with the first room?"

"Very good Chiisai," he said, amused. She grumbled something he didn't catch and elbowed him in the ribs, and he smirked. "The damage was haphazard and sloppy. Except for one room."

"Which one?"

"The weapons room."

"So you guys are thinking they started there, and then when they didn't find whatever it was they were looking for, they vandalized the other rooms?"

"Bingo."

"Why?"

"Most likely to throw us off. I thought it was bizarre that nothing was taken, especially after you gave us the inventory with the estimated worth of each object on display. It wasn't until we started looking at the photos we took that we started thinking something about this really didn't look right."

Tokio snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, 'cause it made so much sense before," she muttered. She sighed and leaned her head against him. "Okay, you guys can do the walk-through. Do you want the head curator to be there?"

Saitou shrugged.

"I guess. Why?"

"Just wondering."

"One more thing."

"Hm?"

"I had a long conversation with my chief, Hijikata, this morning, and he and I agreed that you need extra security at the museum."

Tokio lifted her head and glared up at him.

"Look here you—" she began hotly, but he held up a hand.

"The decision is out of your hands, Chiisai, so get used to it."

She glared up at him, fuming, then turned her attention ahead.

"Well if I don't have a choice then," she snapped bitterly.

"Oh don't have a fit," he said, rolling his eyes. "I can't believe you're offended, especially after that bomb threat this morning."

"My security staff is adequate," she said.

"Adequate don't mean shit," he snapped sharply, starting to get irritated. "You're lucky we didn't find an actual bomb on the premises! I was surprised it wasn't there, frankly, considering the _top-notch_ team you've got working for you."

"Stop talking about my staff!" she shouted, trying to throw his arm off of her shoulders.

He stopped walking and pressed her more tightly into his side.

"That's enough," he growled. "Now behave."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll spank you right here," he threatened, and she stopped struggling and stared up at him, horrified and incredulous.

"_What_?"

"You heard me," he snapped, glaring down at her. "Are you going to behave?"

She didn't reply, but she did sniff and turn away, and he took that as a yes and eased up on his grip a little.

"You won't even notice they're there," he said, voice normal now, as he tugged her along when he began walking again. "I'm calling in Shinomori's old comrades from the security department. They all trained together, and I'm putting him in charge of overseeing the security of the museum."

"Does that mean he's going to be in charge of my staff as well?" she asked stiffly.

"Yes." She stiffened under his arm. "Would you rather I deal with them?" he demanded testily.

"No," she admitted.

"Then be happy I was considerate enough to give Shinomori the job and not do it myself."

Actually, it had been Hijikata who'd made that call; Saitou had wanted to take charge of the security team, but once his superior officer had realized that Saitou had a hostile attitude (to understate in the extreme) towards the museum security staff, Hijikata had decided it was best if Saitou stayed as far away from them as was humanly possible.

It had taken a direct order with a dire warning attached to get Saitou to agree.

"Fine," she said moodily.

He held his peace and didn't tell her her acquiescence wasn't necessary; two fights was more than enough for one night.

They walked in silence until they got to the train station.

"You've got fifteen minutes before the next train comes through," he observed, looking at his watch.

"Uh-huh," she replied, still stiff and frosty, and he rolled his eyes; aw hell, now how was he supposed to fix this?

"The security is temporary, Tokio," he said with patience he didn't actually possess. "Once we've got Wu in custody, the team moves out and your staff will once more have full reign."

"You didn't ask me," she snapped. "I would have agreed if you'd asked."

Ah. So she resented his high-handedness.

"All right," he said wearily. "All right. I apologize for not asking you, and in the future, promise to ask you next time I decide to make any new change. Acceptable?"

"'Any new change'?" she repeated, one eyebrow raised.

"Any new change."

She watched him, then lifted her chin and sniffed.

"Fine," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied. "Anything else I've done that's got your panties in a knot?"

Her lips twitched.

"You are such a pervert, Hajime."

"It's an expression," he protested. "However, if in your particular case, it's actually true, I'd be more than happy to help you remedy it."

"Pervert," she insisted, poking him in the chest.

He grabbed her finger.

"That's not nice," he said mildly, and she smiled and leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him.

"Better?" she asked sweetly.

"Hm—it's a nice start, but you didn't kiss the spot you abused, Tokio," he returned, and she shook her head and kissed him again.

"Too bad," she returned. "Now I have to go get my ticket or I'll miss my train."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he said.

"With you offering to check my underwear for knots?"

"I'm less interested in the underwear than in what's under it," he replied, and she whacked him.

"You say things like that to mortify me, don't you!" she accused.

He shrugged.

"I need a hobby, right?" he returned.

She laughed, shaking her head.

"You're not well," she said as he dragged her close.

"Nope," he agreed. "I think you're gonna miss your ride," he added before he leaned down and kissed her.

Actually, she didn't; she managed to convince him to let her get her ticket before the train came by mentioning—off-handedly, of course—that her father was expecting her home, and he would probably not be very happy to learn exactly why she hadn't made it.

"You're devious," he accused, glaring at her.

She grinned cheekily and winked at him.

"See you tomorrow!" she called over her shoulder as she scrambled off to get her ticket with less than five minutes before the train was supposed to show up.

He waited until the train was gone to walk back to his apartment, on the off chance that she'd missed it after all.

It hadn't been the best night he'd ever had with a woman, and most men would have deemed it a mild disaster, since they'd had two separate fights in one evening. Then again, Saitou wasn't most men.

Which was probably a good thing, since Tokio herself was anything but normal.

"Takagi's fucking daughter," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. "This should be interesting."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 11: Secrets and Security:_

"You sent poor Himura to get her instead of going yourself."

"I knew she wouldn't try to kick Himura's head off."

There was a pause.

"Okay fine. But you're still a creep."

---

"If you don't get over here now you'll be unemployed is what you'll be! _Move your_ _ass_!"

"_Now_ she's the dragon lady," Saitou said, arms crossed over his chest.

---

"Captain Miserable," she said dryly, gesturing to the curator, "allow me to introduce you to Captain Obvious."

---

"Am I in hell?" she asked.

"Naw," he replied. "Just feels that way."


	11. Secrets and Security

**A/N:** There were several requests for a Misao appearance…and here it is! She wasn't originally going to show up (she was going to be referenced) but a lot of things that I didn't think were going to happen with this story ended up happening, and she was one of them—unpredictability seems like a very Misao-like trait. : ). Also, there was a lot going on in my house this week, and I didn't have a wealth of time to carefully go over this chapter (which technically makes it no different in quality from the preceding chapters since I'm such a spaz), so apologies in advance for anything I may not have caught.

**PLEASE BE ADVISED:** To older woman and other conservative types—this chapter contains LANGUAGE. Find someone to read it to you who will edit it out. : ).

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

None, again. I am awesome (let me have it, guys, it's been a long week…).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Takagi Sada: According to the Shinsengumi HQ website I frequent, Historical Tokio's name was actually Sada, and she received the name Tokio from Teruhime, the Aizu princess to whom she was lady-in-waiting. There is also mention of a sister that did not survive babyhood (assuming I remember everything I've read correctly—in the interests of accuracy, do NOT quote me on _any_ of this). Since no name was given and I'm intrigued by the idea of a sister for Tokio, I gave the sister Tokio's real name, and ta-da, for better or worse.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Eleven: Secrets and Security_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It was his ass if he got caught.

Saitou peered around from behind his computer monitor and suspiciously looked around the office again before returning his attention to the screen. He'd come in very very early so he'd be able to do a little snooping without anyone looking over his shoulder. Standard procedure really, nothing suspicious.

Except that it had nothing to do with his current case.

Well, that wasn't true, exactly—Tokio was a part of his case. Sort of.

"Gods let a train have derailed," he muttered. "Give me an extra fifteen minutes."

Actually, he was pretty sure he'd be able to talk his way out of a charge of abuse of power, but that took more effort than he was willing to expend right now, which was why he was growing increasingly frustrated and paranoid with the system he'd hacked into using his old codes from his days as an internal spy for the government. He didn't want to stay on too long, because in another few minutes the network would realize he was snooping around and they'd be on his ass, and if they realized he was accessing civilian records that had nothing to do with anything currently on the docket, he'd get kicked out.

He didn't have Okita's flair for staying ahead of the network. But he did have the advantage of knowing exactly what he was looking for, and when he was finally able to access the system, his search gave him exactly what he wanted.

"Takagi Kojuro, sex, male, date of birth, 14 November 1948…in Nermia Ward…marital status, married…lives in Nerima Ward…occupation, police officer in the MPD, rank, sergeant…shit, I can't be reading this on here," he muttered, suddenly realizing he was inviting trouble by staying on so long.

He printed out the portion of the Takagi file dealing specifically with Tokio's immediate family, then logged out of the system and scrambled over to the printer to grab the file before someone came in. Someone nosy. Like Okita. Or even worse, Kenshin.

It was a thick file—the government kept some damn detailed documentation, Saitou had learned in his early years—and he had to use a monstrous clip to keep the file together. Then he sat behind his desk and began flipping through the file, since he still had some time.

"People're really draggin' ass today," he muttered absently. "Maybe a train _did_ derail…."

The thought wasn't enough to distract him from the file, though, and he continued scanning through it, eyes narrowing whenever he found an interesting bit.

The government had kept some minutely detailed files on Kojuro's illustrious career, and all of what Saitou read convinced him that the old man had earned the nickname "The Demon of Nerima Ward." Not that that was good news for him, of course, but it was nice to know exactly what he was dealing with.

His wife Katsuko was your typical Japanese housewife, nothing especially noteworthy except that she came from a very well-off family with ties to Aizu, like the family she'd married into; apparently, during the Tokugawa shogunate, the Takagi family had been retainers for the Aizu royal family, which lent them a certain prestige despite their present-day middle-class status. Saitou had figured that out already, though, after hearing from Okita that Tokio was a distant cousin of Kiyosato—the Kiyosato family had serious clout in Japan, to put it lightly, and it was impossible not to be at least somewhat familiar with who they were affiliated with, either by blood or marriage.

His son Morinusuke had followed in his father's footsteps and was steadily making his way through the ranks. The kid was young (twenty, going on twenty-one), but he showed promise, and his record, like his father's, was spotless. The boy had attended a community college, which amused Saitou; he himself had never gone farther than high school, and he'd never had the inclination. He doubted he ever would, unless the department decided to make it a requirement.

And then there was Tokio. He smirked in satisfaction when he discovered her birth date (April 15, 1978)—well…that had only taken eight years.

The file made note of the fact that she had graduated with her associate's degree a semester early from the same Nerima community college her brother had attended (or actually it was the other way around, wasn't it?) and become Associate Director of Kiyosato's museum at nineteen, almost twenty, making her the youngest person to achieve that in Bunkyo. Her record, like that of her parents and brother was spotless. No tickets, no arrests, nothing.

Saitou sat back and stared at the file, the wheels in his mind cranking. He was feeling a little better now; he hated not knowing what he was getting into, didn't like not having a semblance of control over any situation, regardless of how tenuous. Normally, he wouldn't have risked alerting the network that he was snooping where he didn't need to be snooping, but this was different. This wasn't recon that he could do any other way—he needed to know exactly what he was dealing with in the form of Tokio's father (he'd been a little concerned about the brother too, until he'd accessed the file), and there was no way she was going to know the details he wanted, things pertaining to his long and illustrious career with the MPD.

He hadn't gotten his information through strictly fair means—technically, he hadn't broken any laws or rules, though he doubted that Tokio, should she ever find out about this, would agree—but all was fair in love and war, and this…_whatever it_ _was_…between him and her was one or the other.

His eyes came back into focus and he found himself looking at someone else's records.

_Shit_, he thought, frowning. _I didn't want this—wait a minute…._

He shifted back and forth through the file and discovered this person—Takagi Sada—was smack in the middle of Tokio and Morinusuke's respective dossiers. Now why would that be? Unless they were all somehow related….

"Takagi Sada…sex, female…date of birth, 4 February 1979…did not finish high school…hell, no G.E.D., even…no college, no shit…marital status, single…living in Shinjuku Ward…occupation—_musician_? Who the…parents, Takagi Kojuro and Katsuko…siblings, Takagi Morinusuke, male, and Takagi Tokio, female…oh _bullshit_…." He frowned, flipped back to Tokio and Morinusuke's dossiers and looked under "Siblings" and then wanted to kick himself for not noticing the extra name under either category. Then again, since she'd just mentioned having a brother, once he'd seen Morinusuke's name in Tokio's sibling category, he'd ignored the rest of the category.

"That was sloppy," he growled to himself as he flipped back to Sada's dossier. "That was damn sloppy…arrested 31 October 1995 for disturbing the peace…arrested 4 February 1996 for disturbing the peace…arrested 8 December 1997…for disturbing the peace…arrested 8 April 2000…for…disturbing the peace…well, she's nothing if not dedicated, I'll give her that…."

Saitou read over the file again, then tossed it on top of his desk and sat back.

"Well I'll be damned," he said finally. "The sainted Takagis have a black sheep in their midst."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

The head curator was not happy to be pulled away from his duties for the walk-through.

To put it mildly.

"I don't have time for this!" he snapped at Tokio, who was still quite annoyed by Saitou's putting a security team in her museum without asking her first, and thus less willing to patiently deal with his hissy fit than she normally was.

"Well make some time!" she bellowed back, shocking the man into silence. "Because the officers want you there!"

She didn't give him the opportunity to recover and reply: she whirled around and left the storage area. Enishi, who had just arrived at the storage area, paused when he saw her face, but didn't say anything and simply fell into step beside her.

They were back in her office before he dared open his mouth:

"Are you okay?" he asked after shutting the door.

Tokio threw herself into her chair and glared at her desk.

"No," she muttered. "That smirking bastard."

"Wu?"

"No. _Assistant Inspector Saitou Hajime_," she spat.

Enishi rolled his eyes and sighed, then walked to her desk and sat on the arm of one of the chairs in front of it.

"Oh come on," he said. "I don't like it any more than you do, but you gotta admit it's a good idea."

"I didn't say it wasn't!" she snapped. "But I don't like him sneaking around behind my back and making decisions about my museum without clearing them with me first!"

"You need to stop bitching," Enishi said sharply, annoyed. "It's already been done and there's nothing you can do about it, so deal."

"Go to hell!"

"You're just pissed off 'cause you know I'm right!"

"Get out of my office!"

"Fine! I'm tired of hearin' you bitch anyway!"

He stormed out of the room before she could bean him with her nameplate, which hit the door and left a very impressive dent.

_I need to stop doing that_, she decided, glaring at the dent. _Or buy a rubber_ _nameplate._

Her phone rang, and she picked it up before it had finished ringing the first time.

"What?" she demanded, her bad temper evident in her voice.

"The officers have arrived, Tokio-san," Sae said politely.

"Thank you," Tokio said gruffly, then hung up and stood.

It honestly hadn't bothered her that much last night after he'd promised not to do it again. It wasn't until she'd thought about it some more on the train ride to the museum this morning that her mood had soured and her resentment from last night had begun to fester anew.

A part of her knew she was being irrational—and that part was also telling her she was going to have to apologize to Enishi later and possibly take him out to dinner to make it sincere—but damn it, it rubbed her the wrong way. The museum was now her responsibility, and she didn't like that he hadn't consulted her. It was too similar to something the board of trustees might have pulled, if not for Katsura and Takasugi—saving the poor, dim girl from herself by making decisions for her.

Oh great; now she _really_ hated Saitou's guts.

If she didn't kill him when she saw him, she'd consider it a miracle.

As it happened, Kenshin saved Saitou from his likely grisly end:

"Good morning Tokio-san," he politely greeted when she stalked out of her office, scowl firmly in place.

"Himura-san," she said, forcing pleasantness into her voice.

He sent her a sympathetic look.

"This one's sorry you're so put out, Tokio-san," he murmured, stepping closer to her. "But try to bear with us, please. If it's any consolation, the team Saitou picked for you is more than qualified."

"Not really, Himura-san," Tokio replied, and Kenshin sighed wearily.

"Well…come meet them anyway."

She relented and followed him over to where a visibly uneasy Aoshi was inspecting the security team. Tokio took pity on the youngest member of the criminal investigation team and hid her annoyance.

"Good morning Shinomori-san," she greeted.

"Good morning Tokio-san," he replied with a curt nod, face tight with nerves.

"I understand that these gentlemen are going to be providing us with extra security?" she asked politely, looking over the assembled group with a smile.

"Yes ma'am," he replied, turning to the four men. "This is Tanaka Hannya, Yamaguchi Shikijou, Sato Hyottoko, and Sugimura Beshimi."

Each man bowed when Aoshi said his name.

"Hannya-kun's a master of disguise," Aoshi continued. "He can mimic anyone within moments of meeting him, and you'd never be able to tell the difference—or her! He can mimic him _or_ her," he added nervously with a glance in her direction. Tokio smiled at him reassuringly.

"Sounds like a very handy man to have around," she said to him, then turned to Hannya and bowed. "We're honored to have use of your services, Tanaka-san."

Hannya's expression never changed that Tokio could see; his face seemed curiously frozen, actually. She did, however, detect a note of surprise in his voice when he hastily replied,

"Thank you Takagi-san. The pleasure's all mine."

"Shikijou-kun and Hyottoko-kun," Aoshi said, relaxing a little now with Tokio's easy acceptance of the group, "are, well…some of the best protection you can ask for."

"Oh?" Tokio smiled widely at both men. "Then we're lucky to have them!"

On the other side of the lobby, Saitou and Okita stood, leaning up against the wall with their arms crossed over their chests, watching the introductions take place.

"You're a creep," Okita said idly.

"Oh?" Saitou returned, raising an eyebrow and looking over at his friend.

"You sent poor Himura to get her instead of going yourself."

"I knew she wouldn't try to kick Himura's head off."

There was a pause.

"Okay fine. But you're still a creep."

"Call me what you will," Saitou replied with a shrug. "Whatever it takes to keep her from going ape-shit."

"You're fucking insane," Okita murmured, shaking his head. "What is it with you and mentally unstable women? Is the sex good or something?"

"Yaso wasn't mentally unstable," Saitou said mildly, deciding to ignore the second question.

"No, the other one was—Aioi, I think her name was. Right?"

"She wasn't mentally unstable either."

Okita snorted.

"Yeah right," he muttered, turning his attention back to Tokio, Kenshin, Aoshi, and the security team. "She just randomly exploded in public because she was a _paradigm_ of mental _health_."

"If you want to start talking about old girlfriends, I recall you made a few dubious choices yourself," Saitou said, sending him a narrow glare from out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, well you've consistently made 'dubious' choices," Okita shot back. "It's not like it was one or two, dude—_every_ woman you've _ever_ gone out with was crazy as shit."

"Yaso was not crazy," Saitou insisted, annoyed now.

"Was too—she married you," Okita shot back and Saitou sent him a nasty look.

"If you're trying to be funny, you're failing miserably."

"Okay, okay, calm down," Okita said. A pause. "But she was still crazy, Hajime."

Saitou sighed irritably.

"I'm going to smack the shit out of you if you don't stop," he snapped.

"It's gonna take more than one smack then," Okita calmly returned.

"Good."

"You so need help."

"And you're so going to need a body cast."

Kenshin, mean while, had noticed the security team was one member short:

"Aoshi?" he said. "Where's Misao-dono?"

Aoshi paused, blinked, then looked around.

"Oh shit," he said lowly.

The truant Misao showed up five seconds later, scrambling over to her place at the end of the line with a cup of coffee in one hand and her hat in the other. Aoshi hung his head and sighed.

"So much for a good first impression," he muttered, and Kenshin patted his arm sympathetically.

"It's all right," he assured. "This one doubts that Tokio-dono'll hold it against you like Saitou would."

Tokio smiled in amusement, then cleared her throat and looked over at Aoshi.

"Shinomori-san?" she prompted.

Aoshi sighed, then straightened and walked to the end of the line. He grabbed Misao's hat and firmly planted it on her head, then took the cup of coffee from her and shot her a faintly disapproving look. Then he turned back to Tokio.

"This is Makimachi Misao, Tokio-san. She's a last minute addition."

Tokio smiled and walked over to stand before Misao.

"Good morning Makimachi-san," she said with a bow.

"Good morning Takagi-san," Misao chirped, also bowing—and slamming her head into Tokio's.

"OW!" both women howled, doubling over and clutching their heads.

"Tokio-dono!" Kenshin yelped in horror.

"Damn it Misao!" Aoshi exploded at the same time, concerned and exasperated, as he took hold of her arm and tried to pull her upright.

Saitou and Okita scrambled over.

"What happened?" Okita asked.

"A meeting of minds," Tokio said, rubbing her head and wincing. "Wow that hurt—I'm seeing colors," she added.

"Oh hell," Saitou muttered, taking hold of her arm and leading her to the stairs. "Sit down and let me have a look," he said with a sigh.

She did as he ordered without protest. He knelt down and gently felt the top of her head for a forming knot, didn't find one, then grabbed her chin and examined her eyes.

"Colors gone yet?" he asked.

"All except the green," she replied, absently rubbing her head. "That really hurt."

"You want ice?"

"No. But I think I'm gonna need aspirin."

He nodded.

There was a cough from behind him, and he and Tokio looked around and found Aoshi and Misao standing behind them, both of them looking embarrassed, though of the two, Aoshi looked more likely to die of it than Misao.

"Back for an encore?" Saitou asked dryly, and Misao glared at him.

"Stop that," Tokio muttered darkly at him, then smiled at Misao and Aoshi. "I'm fine," she assured cheerfully. "See? No harm done."

"I am so sorry Tokio-san," Aoshi said quietly, a cross between painfully acute humiliation and utter dread on his face.

"Don't worry about it, I've got a hard head," Tokio said, standing with help from Saitou.

"It was all my fault," Misao said when Aoshi nudged her. "I'm really really sorry, Takagi-san."

Tokio waved the apology off:

"Really, Shinomori-san, Makimachi-san, I'm fine, honest. It was nothing. In fact, I think I should thank you, Makimachi-san—I'm awake now."

Misao sent her a small, grateful smile, then nudged Aoshi.

"She is _not_ a dragon lady," she said, and Aoshi blanched and stared at Tokio in horror.

Tokio, in response, pressed her lips together very hard to keep from laughing at the poor man.

"I have my moments," Tokio said when she was sure she wouldn't laugh. "If you're around long enough, you'll get to see. Now then, are we going to do the walk-through now?"

"Yes," Saitou said, eyeing Aoshi and deciding it was probably a good idea to change the subject.

Tokio nodded. "Fine then. I'll get my aspirin and have Sae get the head curator over here, and then we can start. Good?"

"That'll work," Saitou replied.

Tokio looked back to Misao.

"Do you need some aspirin Makimachi-san?"

"Uh…no, I'm okay, thanks," Misao replied. She grinned. "I guess my head's harder than yours."

Tokio smiled faintly.

"So it would seem," she murmured, amused. "I'll be back," she added, walking back toward her office.

"I'm going to _strangle_ you Misao," Aoshi said lowly as soon as Tokio was out of ear shot.

"Oh come on!" she whined. "Takagi-san was really nice about it!"

"Of course she was!" Aoshi snapped. "She's a professional!"

"You're lucky she's got a sense of humor," Saitou observed. "And that she likes you enough not to have lost her temper and chewed you out like I'm going to do when we get back to the station."

Aoshi groaned and closed his eyes.

Tokio returned ten minutes later, looking sour.

"I hate my employees," she said to no one in particular.

"What's that mean?" Misao asked as Tokio stalked by them toward the back of the museum.

Okita grinned and rubbed his hands together gleefully.

"It means someone's gonna get yelled at!"

The officers and Misao followed along in Tokio's wake, ending up in the storage area.

"_Nakajima_!" she roared, making everyone in the storage area jump three feet into the air. "What the hell did I say?"

"I'm busy!" Nakajima yelled back, and Tokio twitched violently, expression furious.

"If you don't get over here now you'll be unemployed is what you'll be! _Move_ _your ass_!"

"_Now_ she's the dragon lady," Saitou said, arms crossed over his chest.

Nakajima stalked over, obviously incensed and planted himself in front of Tokio.

"If you want this exhibit back up by the timeline you gave me," he began.

"When I tell you to do something you better damn well do it or I'll throw you out without a recommendation," Tokio interrupted, raising her voice. "I don't need Kiyosato-san's permission to get rid of you, and you _are_ expendable—if you think our present circumstances make you somehow invulnerable, just try me."

Nakajima turned red and watched her furiously, but after a moment of glaring at her, he lowered his gaze.

"My apologies, Takagi-san." he said tightly at long last.

"Noted—now get upstairs," Tokio frostily replied. "And don't make me repeat myself again."

"Yes ma'am," he murmured bitterly, and walked by her.

Okita waited until Nakajima had passed out of the room to say,

"That…was awesome."

"Yeah," Misao murmured, looking a little pale.

"Move," Saitou snapped, and everyone jumped and then immediately did as he ordered. He watched them go, then looked back over at Tokio. "Tokio?"

Her shoulders were stiff and she was rigid.

"Kurosagi-san," she said after a moment, and a young man stepped forward.

"Yes Takagi-san?" he asked, obviously nervous.

"Continue where Nakamura-san left off—I doubt we'll keep him for very long."

"Yes ma'am."

Then, she turned around and faced Saitou.

"I do things in this museum my way," she said stiffly, expression serious and eyes diamond hard. "Is that understood?"

He watched her, then nodded ever so slightly.

"Absolutely," he said quietly.

She jerked her head in acknowledgement, then let out a low, unsteady breath.

"Walk-through," she said, and he nodded again and gestured for her to leave ahead of him, which she did, murmuring,

"Don't stare at my butt,"

as she walked by.

Saitou paused, surprised, then smirked faintly.

"I only make promises I know I can keep, Chiisai."

She sighed:

"Pervert."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Once Saitou and Tokio joined the group, the officers—having been furnished with new copies of the inventories of each room in the exhibit by way of Sae—led the group into the weapons room, which was number seven.

"What are we doing here?" Nakajima asked.

"The walk-through," Tokio snapped, and the officers and Misao—who'd tagged along—all exchanged raised eyebrow looks.

Obviously, there was some residual hatred there.

"This is the weapons room," Nakajima said irritably. "This isn't the first room."

Tokio stared at him coolly, then looked over at Saitou.

"Captain Miserable," she said dryly, gesturing to the curator, "allow me to introduce you to Captain Obvious."

Okita let out a loud snort that he didn't bother to hide, and Aoshi and Kenshin coughed loudly to try to cover up both Okita's snort and their own laughter. Saitou's lips curved into a faint smirk, and Nakajima glared daggers at Tokio.

"We have reason to believe whatever the suspects were looking for was in this room, Nakajima-dono," Kenshin said politely, having managed to school his features.

"What's the theory?" Tokio asked, arms crossed over her chest and now in what the men had come to know was her no nonsense mode.

"The theory," Okita said, "is that they knew exactly what they were looking for, and exactly where it was, being that they were employees and had been helping you folks set up the exhibit."

Tokio raised an eyebrow, which is exactly what Saitou had been expecting:

"And just how do you figure that?"

Okita inclined his head, then looked to Aoshi.

"Shinomori?"

Aoshi accepted with a nod and turned to Tokio.

"The damage in this room was different from the others," Aoshi answered. "In the other rooms, it was just damage for the sake of damage."

Tokio frowned.

"Shinomori-san what crap are you feeding me?"

"No crap, ma'am," he assured. He looked over at Kenshin. "Himura?"

Kenshin accepted with a nod and turned to Tokio.

"Of all the rooms, the cases in this one had the least amount of damage, relatively speaking of course. In relation to the rest of the exhibit, the cases in this room were overall more intact than in any other room."

The acting director eyed him, then turned her gaze to Saitou, who thus far had stood silent beside her, waiting patiently for her to ask…

"And that proves what?"

…ah, he loved it when she played his game.

"It proves," he said, "that they knew what they were doing and what they were looking for. It's much easier to go in and do only what's absolutely necessary, because there's less work involved. Using a glass cutter to get at the artifacts is easier than knocking over or breaking open cases to get at them. Yes or no?"

"Yes," Tokio said, voice faintly suspicious. "But the cases were still smashed and knocked over in this room, like all the others."

Saitou inclined his head, then looked over at Okita.

"Okita-kun?"

Okita accepted with a nod and turned to Tokio.

"Yes they were, Tokio-san," he said. "But vonce ve studied ze photos, ve whealized zomezhing strange," he continued, adopting an awful accent in an attempt to get her to lighten up. When it had no effect, he sighed and shook his head and went back to his regular voice, ignoring Saitou's muttered "Ahou": "And that was that some of the edges of the holes looked cut, not broken."

He looked over at Aoshi, who accepted the thread with a nod.

"So we had a closer look at the samples you let us take, and low and behold—we discovered some of the edges had been cut. So what most likely happened, was that they cut holes to get into the cases, then tried to obliterate the evidence rather clumsily."

It was obvious by the look on Tokio's face that she was impressed, and unsure whether or not she should show it. Saitou allowed himself to smile faintly in smug satisfaction.

It wasn't quite the same as showing off for a girl in high school, but it was pretty damn close.

"You guys are into details, huh?" she asked finally, and Okita grinned widely.

"In various degrees of obsession," he agreed, and Tokio smiled faintly, then seemed to think of something and frowned.

"So then what happened? If what they were looking for was supposedly in this room, why wasn't anything taken?" she asked, looking up at Saitou.

His gaze went to the curator.

"You," he said, making the man jump. "What was in this room?"

"A cannon took up most of the center," Nakajima said, once he'd recovered. He walked to the center of the room to demonstrate. "It had its own sort of mini exhibit: the ammunition and loading tools were in cases all around it with cards explaining what they were and what they did. On the wall to our left, were firearms—rifles, pistols, muskets, that sort of thing, with ammunition for each model and a little card explaining what it was. The wall in front of us housed unique weapons."

"'Unique'?" Okita asked, curiosity obviously piqued.

"Inventive firearms, mostly," Nakajima explained. "Rifles that had odd attachments, pistols with little secret compartments or odd shapes, strangely shaped knives, that sort of thing. They were objects that were imported in but never quite caught on."

"What was on the back wall?" Misao piped up.

"The katana," Nakajima replied with a faint sneer after pausing for much longer than was strictly necessary, which everyone noticed, and none of the officers liked, because of the implication.

"Lose the attitude, Nakajima," Tokio advised quietly, but her eyes were glittering in a way that made Kenshin, Aoshi, Okita, and Misao, who could see her expression, shuffle back a little.

"How many katana?" Saitou asked, watching Nakajima with narrowed eyes.

"Five," Nakajima replied immediately, and Saitou's eyes narrowed further. "We had one from the Bakumatsu era, three from the Meiji, and one from the Taishou, which came after Meiji. Technically speaking the Taishou katana didn't belong in the exhibit, but it was too nice a piece not to show off."

"And the wall on our right?" Aoshi asked, voice several degrees cooler than it had been a few seconds ago.

Nakajima didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he either didn't care or was too stupid to (the officers were betting it was the last one):

"A large board explaining and giving a little background on this portion of the exhibit."

"What was the net worth of this room?" Okita asked.

"Oh I haven't the faintest—"

"A conservative estimate puts it at just over nine hundred thousand yen," came Enishi's voice from the doorway, and everyone turned around to see him lounging against one of the sides, arms crossed over his chest and expression bored. "Most of the stuff in here was too badly abused by their previous owners to be worth much more." He met Tokio's gaze. "You started without me, wench."

Tokio smiled faintly at him.

"He who falls behind, gets left behind," she replied.

Enishi smirked faintly.

"Heh—so it would seem." His gaze drifted over to Nakajima, who immediately stiffened and looked down. "So what's goin' on?" he asked, watching Nakajima with a look that told everyone in the room he knew exactly how the curator had been acting.

"The officers have put forth a new theory," Tokio said.

"You don't say?" Enishi drawled.

"I certainly do," Tokio drawled back, rocking back on her heels.

"So what's the theory boys?" Enishi asked lazily, looking over at Saitou.

Saitou didn't know what exactly was going on between Tokio, Enishi and Nakajima, but he did know this wasn't the first time it had happened; Nakajima's reaction to Enishi's sudden appearance told him that. He was tempted to ask, but in the end decided to just play along—there'd be time enough for questions later.

"This was the starting room. Whatever it was they were looking for, it was in here."

"Huh." Enishi lazily straightened and strolled into the room, hands in the pockets of his slacks. No one missed the way Nakajima edged back to keep a considerable distance between the head of Finances and himself. "So the damage to the other rooms was…?"

"Possibly a distraction," Aoshi said, glaring at Nakajima, who was watching Enishi.

"Or possibly a means to vent frustration," Okita said, also watching Nakajima balefully.

"Huh. That's some theory all right. Nakajima," he said suddenly, and the curator flinched violently and looked up at Enishi nervously.

"Yes sir?"

"I think you're pretty well useless here now," he said idly. "Get lost."

"Yes sir," he murmured, bowing, and then turning and beating a hasty retreat.

"Asshole," Okita muttered, glaring at the man.

Tokio closed an eye and made like she was going to throw something at the curator.

"If I had my stapler," she murmured, then "fired" her imaginary stapler. "…bam, right in the back of his fat stupid head."

"I can shoot him, you know," Saitou offered, looking down at her. "He's still in range. Nothing drastic, of course—maybe just a leg."

"Naw—we just finished clearing the glass out of the rooms," Tokio replied with a sigh. "And blood's a lot harder to get out than glass."

"What was his problem?" Misao asked, scowling.

"He's a misogynistic dickhead," Enishi replied, rolling his shoulders. "He threw a fit when Akira hired Tokio—said she was too dumb to have that much power over the museum's running. Like having a dick makes him _so_ much smarter," he added, rolling his eyes.

"How'd you hear that?" Tokio asked sharply, glaring at him.

"Sis told me," he replied. "Akira was really surprised."

Tokio sent him a flat look.

"I'm serious!" Enishi insisted. "He really didn't realize what an asshole Nakajima is until you came on."

"So the fact that he never once hired a female assistant ever, that never made Akira-kun a little, oh, I don't know, suspicious?"

Now it was Enishi's turn to send Tokio a flat look.

"Are you on drugs?" he asked wearily. "You know how Akira is—dude lives in a bubble. And my sister helps him stay there. And ever since you came on, you've helped too."

"He has a heart condition," Tokio grumbled, looking peevish.

"Had," Enishi corrected. "That bit won't work anymore—you're gonna have to take a couple vacations every year now."

"So that's why you magically showed up?" Okita asked, watching Enishi with a faint grin. "Because you knew Dickhead was gonna give Tokio-san a hard time?"

Enishi shrugged.

"He's terrified of me for some reason," he replied carelessly. "He's not so "bad ass" when I'm around."

"'For some reason'?" Tokio repeated with a snort. "Enishi, you cornered him in his office and threatened to rip out his heart and make him eat it if you ever heard he was giving me a hard time."

"That'll do it," Okita observed, nodding.

"Yup," Aoshi, Kenshin and Misao agreed in unison, also nodding.

Saitou raised an eyebrow, faintly impressed.

"Nice," he complimented.

Enishi bowed his head.

"Thank you," he replied, and Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Could we finish?" she asked. "I have other crises to attend to—Kamatari has about eight a day."

"Oh yeah, he was looking for you," Enishi said and Tokio sighed, shoulders slumping.

"Of course he was," she muttered. "What now?"

"He says I'm an asshole and he refuses to go out and buy new cases with me," Enishi reported.

"What did you do?" Tokio asked accusingly.

"Nothing," Enishi replied, offended. "The usual," he admitted when her glare deepened.

Tokio let out a sound of frustration.

"I asked you two to try to get along, damn it!"

"News flash: we can't," Enishi returned, scowling.

"You don't try to!"

"He always tries to fucking molest me, woman! And since you refuse to let me file a sexual harassment lawsuit—"

"We're not having this argument again Yukishiro Enishi!" Tokio bellowed. "Now go find Kamatari-chan and apologize and go buy the bleeding cases!"

"Why's it have to be me?" Enishi demanded.

"Because I said so, damn it! So because I said so you're gonna do it! And I don't give a damn if you like it or not, but by the gods you're gonna do it or I'm gonna take Saitou-san's gun and _shoot_ you!"

Enishi's gaze went to Saitou. Saitou had his hands folded behind his back and he was watching Enishi. When he met the younger man's gaze, he smiled ever so faintly.

"Fine!" Enishi yelled, whirling around and stalking out. "But if he tries to grab my ass one more time, I _refuse_ to be held accountable for my actions!"

"Fine—let me know which days I can go visit you in the pen, jack ass!" Tokio yelled back.

There was a long pause, and then Kenshin asked,

"Uhm…Tokio-dono…you allow Kamatari-dono to _molest_ Enishi?"

"There's no accounting for good taste, Himura," Okita said authoritatively.

"Speak for yourself," Misao muttered, and Aoshi stared down at her, stunned.

"What?" he demanded, incredulous; his girlfriend had _not_ just said that….

Misao looked up at him, one eyebrow raised.

"What? I'm not dead, I can look," she mildly returned, and Aoshi's jaw dropped.

Okita threw back his head and laughed, Kenshin shook his head, and Misao and Aoshi kept watching each other, the former expectant, the latter stupefied.

Tokio looked up at Saitou.

"Am I in hell?" she asked.

"Naw," he replied. "Just feels that way."

"Oh well, that's a relief."

Saitou smiled faintly.

"You find comfort in the oddest things," he murmured.

"Creep," she muttered.

"What happened to 'Pervert'?"

"Fine—Creepy Pervert."

"Now I sound like some old sicko."

"Okay, fine, which one do you prefer?"

"I prefer Hajime."

"Invalid selection—please try again," she quipped, and he chuckled.

"Chiisai…."

"Oi, you two finished over there?" Okita called, and Saitou and Tokio looked over to find Misao and the officers watching them.

"No, but we can finish arguing later," Tokio replied. "This is more important."

"Damn," Okita drawled with a whistle. "That's cold, Tokio-san."

"I have my reputation as a dragon lady to protect," she replied, and Aoshi winced and she laughed.

"Oh I wouldn't worry Tokio," Saitou said dryly, ambling over to where Okita and the others were standing. "You've more than secured the title."

"Watch it," Tokio warned darkly. "Or I will break your nose this time."

"Crazy," Okita said in a sing song voice, and Saitou glared at him. Okita sent him a winning smile and began singing:

"I'm crazy for feelin', so lone-ly—"

"Oh shut up!" Saitou snapped over Tokio's laughter.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 12: Psychos and Swordsmiths:_

"I hope you shoot them when you catch the bastards," she said.

Okita grinned evilly.

"You're the boss," he said innocently.

---

"You know," Saitou said, sitting back in his seat, "I just realized I'm not that surprised. You hire insane employees—stands to reason you'd hire insane appraisers."

---

"Demanding little thing, ain't she?" Okita drawled, looking over at Saitou.

"Shut up," Saitou said tightly, glaring at him, and Okita backed away.

---

"Damn," he breathed. "We're in the presence of greatness, gentlemen."

Misao glared up at him and elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ow! And ladies," he added, frowning down at her and rubbing his ribs.


	12. Psychos and Swordsmiths

**A/N:** Chapter 11, this chapter, and Chapter 13 were originally going to be one chapter, but since that would have been too long (and also, you know, completely and totally **insane**), I split it up into two. But that was still too long. So I split it up into three, which is why this chapter is a little shorter than usual. And though that may be a little disappointing, I think your rear ends will thank me for not making them sit through a 40+ page chapter. : ).

As usual, I ask and thank you for your indulgence and suspension of belief.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Shinuchi: damn, and I was hoping for a new record. Ah well—according to volume 10 of _RuroKen_, "Shinuchi" means true forge; this is the finest forge, all others coming before it referred to as "Kageuchi", shadow forge, and below the quality of the true forge to some extent.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nothing; appears there's been a switch made.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Twelve: Psychos and Swordsmiths_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Order was soon restored, and the walk-through was finished half an hour later, whereupon they retreated to the conference room to go over everything again for Tokio's benefit.

"So," Tokio said as she plopped into the chair at the head of the table and put her heeled feet up on the lacquered wood. "You guys think they were supposed to steal something in the weapons exhibit, which they did not find, obviously, since nothing was missing. Upon realizing what they were looking for was nowhere in sight, they then proceeded to bust the hell out of my exhibit, either to confuse us or because they were pissed off."

"Right," Okita said with a nod.

Tokio nodded.

"I hope you shoot them when you catch the bastards," she said.

Okita grinned evilly.

"You're the boss," he said innocently.

"Stop that," Saitou muttered.

Tokio sighed, then slipped her feet off the table, stood, grabbed the phone and dialed Sae's extension.

"Sae, order lunch for the officers, please." Her eyes happened to find Misao and she paused. "Wait a minute," she said, then shifted the mouthpiece away from her mouth. "Makimachi-san? Do you have a particular preference?"

Misao looked very surprised, and her gaze flickered immediately to Aoshi, which Tokio didn't miss.

"Uh…no," Misao said hesitantly. "Whatever everyone else's having is fine."

Which Tokio translated as "Whatever Aoshi's having."

Tokio nodded, then moved the mouthpiece back up.

"Sae? Two of the green teas, okay? Oh, and see what the security team would like. Huh?" Tokio suddenly grinned. "Very good Sae—you're catching on. Call me when the food arrives."

She hung up and Okita asked,

"What's Sae catching on to?"

"Not telling Enishi about all the extra lunches I ordered." Tokio replied as she sat.

"Isn't he going to notice it though?" Kenshin asked, frowning. "He is the head of Finances, after all—eventually, he's going to notice."

"He won't," Tokio assured.

"He doesn't strike me as particularly stupid, Tokio-san," Aoshi murmured.

"He isn't," Tokio replied. "Enishi is quite intelligent. But I'm smarter than he is." She pursed her lips. "And sneakier."

The officers decided they didn't want to know the details.

"What still puzzles me," Tokio said, leaning her chair back and looking thoughtful, "is what the Hirumas were looking for. The weapons room didn't have very expensive stuff on display. There were more expensive items in the "Everyday Life in Meiji" section. That I could understand."

"Are you sure about that?" Saitou asked.

"Positive. Everything in this exhibit has been assessed by an independent appraiser. And I remember hearing that he started laughing when our assistants showed up with the rifles and pistols. He said they looked ready for the scrap heap."

"What about the katana?" Saitou asked.

Tokio shrugged.

"They're mildly expensive, being antiques and all. But not enough that someone would want to steal them unless he was a collector, and Wu doesn't strike me as the collector type. They're usually obsessive, you know."

"You don't think they were after the cannon, do you?" Aoshi asked his superior officer.

"They're stupid enough," Okita muttered, shaking his head as he joined Tokio at the table.

"How'd you get the cannon in there?" Saitou asked, looking down at Tokio.

"Very very carefully," Tokio returned, frowning. "We're going to have to rip up some walls and carry it in piece by piece all over again. That thing is a bitch to get up the stairs. It was easier to get it down—we just threw some cardboard down and slid the pieces and one of the assistants held them steady."

"Well then that leaves the cannon out too," Kenshin said, dropping down into a seat.

"Unless what they wanted was for the assistants to move it out for them," Saitou said, and silence descended on the room.

"Where are you guys keeping the cannon?" Okita asked Tokio at long last, face serious.

"The storage room," Tokio replied, looking stunned. "Where we're keeping all the other items that weren't badly damaged."

"I bet they sent the bomb threat so they'd be able to get into the museum and get the cannon without any interference," Aoshi said suddenly, and all eyes went to him. "Think about it: they send the bomb threat with the expectation that Tokio-san will evacuate the museum and call the proper authorities. In the time it takes for them to respond, the Hirumas can come in, muscle the cannon's parts out, load it in the loading bay conveniently located behind the storage area, and get the hell out of here pretty as you please. By the time Tokio-san's staff realizes the cannon's gone, it's too late."

"Holy shit," Okita and Saitou said in unison, both surprised.

"That would have worked," Kenshin said.

"If I'd played the game," Tokio finished.

"Good thing you didn't," Misao remarked.

Tokio nodded absently, frowning.

"But the cannon in and of itself is nothing big," she said. "It doesn't even shoot anymore."

"Are you sure?" Saitou asked.

"Well yeah. The appraiser said it couldn't, that there was something blocking the muzzle, and it had been in there so long nothing short of a miracle from the gods could get it out."

"Call the appraiser, get him over here," Saitou ordered. "I want him to bring his credentials, too."

Tokio raised an eyebrow and watched him expectantly. Saitou glared at her; she glared back.

"Please," he snapped.

"Thank you, I'd be happy to," she replied, and once again dialed Sae and asked for her to call the appraiser and put her through.

"Hello? Yes, it's Takagi Tokio, sir, how are you today? Wonderful, I'm glad to hear that. The museum's just fine—thank you, sir. Actually, the break-in is why I'm calling you. I was hoping, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, if you'd mind coming down here? The investigating officers want to talk to you."

"Credentials," Saitou reminded her, and she waved at him to be quiet.

"Uh-huh. An hour's fine, sir. I really appreciate this. Oh, thank you," she said with a smile. "I'll have Sae make some for you so it'll be ready when you get here. Absolutely."

"Credentials, damn it," Saitou snapped impatiently, and Tokio glared at him.

"Would you stop!" she hissed, moving the mouthpiece away from her mouth.

"If you don't tell him, _I_ will," Saitou warned.

Tokio sent him a seething look, then moved the mouthpiece back up.

"Sir? I'm sorry, there's one more thin—oh. You _heard_," she said, shooting Saitou a baleful look. "Yes, please—the officer in charge of the investigation is quite _insistent_. Thank you sir. Yes. Good-bye."

She hung up then shot Saitou a bitter look.

"You're lucky the cord on this phone is so short, or I'd have thrown it at you."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Idle threats will get you nowhere, Tokio."

"I don't make idle threats, Saitou-san—I make promises."

"Man, I'm starving," Okita said loudly, hoping to avoid an argument. "Is lunch gonna be here soon, Tokio-san?"

The others took their cues from him and moved the conversation into less dangerous territory.

An hour later, they were just finishing up lunch when the phone rang and Tokio picked it up.

"Yes? Ah Sae. Oh he's here? Excellent, we were just finishing up in here. No, send him in. Did you—atta girl, Sae. All right, give him a cup, then send him on in. Uh-huh. Okay. Thanks."

She hung up the phone.

"The appraiser's here," she announced. "Sae should be sending him in shortly."

"What's she giving him?" Misao asked curiously as she wiped her mouth and picked up her lunch.

"Hot chocolate," Tokio said with a grin. "He really really likes the stuff, and he says Sae's the only one in Japan who knows how to make it decently."

"Huh," Okita said, looking like he didn't know whether to laugh or frown. "Kinda…eccentric, huh?"

"Oh no," Tokio assured, shaking her head. "Insane."

"Beg pardon?" Kenshin asked, voicing the surprise everyone else was feeling at the nonchalant announcement.

"He's insane," Tokio said pleasantly. "Totally cracked. But he's a very informed and reliable crack-pot who knows his historical objects."

"You know," Saitou said, sitting back in his seat, "I just realized I'm not that surprised. You hire insane employees—stands to reason you'd hire insane appraisers."

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Tokio sweetly replied.

"What peanut gallery?" a voice asked as the door swung open to reveal a tall man with light colored hair and eyes best described as completely and totally deranged, as was the smile he wore.

"Hello Udou-san," Tokio said with a smile. "Did Sae give you your hot chocolate?"

He held up a steaming mug.

"Excellent, as ever," he said. He then turned his attention to the other occupants in the room, who were staring at him in horror and astonishment—all except Misao and Aoshi, who just looked a little creeped out.

"Ho ho! The Demon Child, the Wolf and Battousai! I wasn't expecting to see you three here. Or ever, actually."

"What the hell are you doing here you fucking traitor!" Okita bellowed, shooting out of his seat with so much force it went skittering back and crashed into the wall

"Okita-san!" Tokio said, surprised by the outburst.

"_This_ is your appraiser?" Saitou demanded incredulously, also rising, hand on his semi-automatic and narrowed, furious gaze on Jin'e, who was lounging in the doorway, looking amused by their reactions.

"Yes, Udou Jin'e," Tokio said. "What the hell is going on?"

"I can't believe you had the fucking guts to go back to using your name, you son of a bitch," Okita snarled.

"Okita," Kenshin said sharply, his eyes still on Jin'e. "Don't forget that there was a reason Kurogasa was so feared."

"I'm not afraid of a shitty magic trick," Okita snapped back.

"'Magic trick'?" Jin'e repeated, laughing. "You haven't changed a bit, Okita-kun."

Okita bristled.

"Fuck you!" he roared.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Tokio bellowed, making all the occupants—except Jin'e—flinch violently. "Now what in the seven hells is going on here? I don't care who answers, but someone had better!"

"I had a job with the government," Jin'e said, still smiling widely. He looked over at Tokio. "You do remember my mentioning that, don't you Takagi-san?"

Tokio nodded slowly.

"Well, I worked with these gentlemen once upon a time. No love lost on their part, it appears."

"And what exactly did you do?" Tokio asked.

"That's classified information," Saitou growled, and he and Tokio had a silent little stand-off before Tokio's gaze returned to Jin'e.

"I left rather early on in the game," Jin'e said nonchalantly sipping his chocolate. "To do a little freelance work in the same vein as my job with the government."

"That's why Okita-san called you a traitor?" Tokio asked, and Jin'e, grinning widely, nodded.

"From government operative to independent agent to antiques appraiser," Tokio said dryly. "You should write a book, Udou-san."

Jin'e threw back his head and laughed.

"That's why I like you Takagi-san," he said, with that wide, creepy grin. "You take everything in stride."

"Hm, well," Tokio returned, "I've learned not asking too many questions goes a long way towards maintaining my sanity."

"So what am I here for?"

"To inspect the cannon."

Jin'e snorted.

"That rusted relic?"

"Uh-huh. The officers have a theory that that's what the vandals were after."

"Then you have very stupid vandals," Jin'e replied, sipping his chocolate.

"You have _no_ idea," Tokio drawled, rolling her eyes, and Jin'e grinned.

Tokio and Jin'e led the way to the storage room, and they breezed by Nakajima without sparing the curator a glance. Nakajima was going to protest, but the chilling look delivered by the officers as one in his direction made him meekly slink back to doing whatever it was he'd been doing without making a peep.

They led the officers to another room, the bulk of which was taken up by the cannon and the carriage it had been sitting on, which lay in pieces. Jin'e whistled when he saw it.

"My my my," he said. He sent Tokio a wide grin. "They really don't like you, do they Takagi-san?"

"No, not really," Tokio admitted.

Jin'e handed her his mug, then pulled out a pair of half-frame magnifier glasses and put them on, which made his already creepy eyes even creepier. He then rubbed his hands together, loudly cracked his knuckles all at once and then walked over to inspect the cannon, humming cheerfully.

"Where in the seven hells did you find that sociopath?" Saitou demanded in a furious whisper, and the other officers crowded around Tokio to hear the answer and also have a turn at asking her if she was out of her mind.

"He came very highly recommended," Tokio calmly replied, watching Jin'e.

"By who? Michael bleeding Jackson?" Kenshin demanded, and surprised Tokio so much she looked over at him.

"No," she said, still looking surprised. "By my friend Teruhime. She's in the antiques business, and she said he's the best appraiser in Japan. He's never wrong, and he can spot a fake in seconds."

"He's crazy!" Okita said.

"I know," Tokio returned. "So is everyone else."

"No damn it," Saitou snapped. "He's really crazy!"

"He traumatized the shrink of our old unit," Okita said. "And if you can screw up a shrink, you're fuckin' crazy!"

"He's dangerous, Tokio-dono," Kenshin insisted.

Tokio rolled her eyes, but didn't get the chance to answer:

"Takagi-san," Jin'e called, and she grabbed Okita's wrist, shoved Jin'e's mug into the hand it was attached to and promptly left the men to go over to where Jin'e was crouched down over the cannon.

Okita looked horrified to be holding Jin'e's mug. He turned to Saitou and Kenshin, and both men immediately backed away.

"You guys're assholes," he snarled.

"Tough shit," Saitou returned. "You knew that when you started working with us."

"Shinomori!" Okita called.

"Not it," Aoshi and Misao immediately said in unison.

"Oh come on!"

"Nope," Aoshi said, shaking his head; Misao was shaking hers as well, her long braid slapping her shoulders.

"Aw go to hell!"

Jin'e and Tokio were ignoring the bickering behind them.

"Did they take this apart, or did your staff?" Jin'e asked.

"My staff. Why?"

"I was just wondering. I suspect the gears on the carriage being jammed and the cannon itself being busted all along the left side and at the back and front was the vandals?"

"Yeah."

"Hm. This is going to be expensive to replace."

Tokio looked crestfallen.

"You're kidding me," she said, and Jin'e, face serious now, shook his head.

"Afraid not. This is a piece of junk, but it's still very rare to find one with all it's original parts and pieces like this one. You're going to have a hell of a time finding replacement parts, and even if you find everything you need, it's going to put a considerable dent in your account."

Tokio sighed wearily, shoulders drooping.

"You have the option of finding someone to replicate the parts, of course," Jin'e said, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"I guess," Tokio murmured. "What's it worth?"

"The cannon in its current state?"

"Uh-huh."

"It was worth ten thousand beforehand. Now, with the damage to the gears…and assuming you can't find parts and need to order replicates…probably one or two thousand, at most."

"This is such crap!" Tokio exploded.

Jin'e shrugged.

"That's the truth," he said.

"No, not that!" she said irritably. She rose and turned to the officers. "There is no way they were after the damn cannon!"

"Why not?" Kenshin asked.

"Because they just ruined the net worth of the thing! They could have gotten ten thousand for it the way it was before, but because they busted it all to hell, it's only worth one thousand now! I'm not buying the cannon theory! Get another one!"

"Demanding little thing, ain't she?" Okita drawled, looking over at Saitou.

"Shut up," Saitou said tightly, glaring at him, and Okita backed away.

"Well what else is there?" Saitou asked, turning his attention back to Tokio. "You said the guns were shit and so were the katana!"

"Would the unique weapons have been sufficient incentive?" Kenshin asked.

Jin'e snorted and rose, taking off his glasses. He turned so that he was standing next to Tokio, an action which clearly affronted Saitou, if his comrades-in-arms were reading his stiff-backed posture correctly.

"The 'unique' weapons are only valuable for their curiosity value," Jin'e said. "There's not enough of a market for them that stealing them, or attempting to, would make much of a profit."

"Besides, they were on display already," Tokio grumbled. She suddenly turned around and brought her heel down on top of the cannon. "WHAT WERE THEY LOOKING FOR DAMN IT?"

Jin'e and Saitou both grabbed one of her arms and hauled her back.

"Takagi-san," Jin'e chided. "Denting it will make it even less valuable."

"I don't care!" she shouted, struggling to get out of his and Saitou's grasp. "I hate it! I hate everything in this room! I'll bust it all up myself! I've had it with this exhibit!"

"And her sanity," Okita muttered, and Kenshin, Aoshi and Misao all nodded in agreement.

"Get ahold of yourself damn it!" Saitou snapped.

"Let go!" Tokio shouted, and he and Jin'e let go of her at the same time purely by chance, and she landed on the floor, on her rear end. "OW! What the hell was that for?" she howled.

"Oh shit," Okita muttered as he and Kenshin hurried forward, Aoshi and Misao right behind them.

"Why the hell did you let go!" Saitou shouted at Jin'e.

Jin'e shrugged.

"She said let go. So I did. Besides, you let go too."

"Because I didn't think you would!" He growled under his breath, then knelt down and tried to help her up. She slapped his hands away, glaring at him.

"We got this one," Okita said, nudging Saitou aside gently. "Come on Tokio-san, up we go."

Tokio allowed Okita and Kenshin to help her to her feet, and she held onto Kenshin's arm once she was upright. Or sort of; she was a little hunched over from having landed square on her butt when Saitou and Jin'e had dropped her.

"Tokio-san," Aoshi asked kindly, "would you like me to get you some ice?"

"Not right now," Tokio said sourly, discreetly trying to rub her sore behind.

"Can you walk?" Misao asked.

"Maybe," she said, shooting Saitou and Jin'e withering looks.

"We'll just go back to your office then," Kenshin said. "And you can…er…well, this one doesn't suppose you'd want to sit down now, would you?"

"Not particularly, Himura-san," Tokio returned, jaw tight.

"We'll figure it out when we get there," Okita advised, gesturing to the exit. "Just let's go, huh?"

Aoshi and Misao led the way. As they were making their way to the door, Misao went to side step one of the wheels of the cannon carriage and ran into a table where the katana were laying, and one of them—sitting far too close to the edge—fell off, the wood handle making a loud CRACK sound as it hit the concrete floor.

"Oh kill me _now_," Tokio muttered.

"Sorry!" Misao yelped, looking stricken.

"Don't worry about it," Tokio said wearily. "Himura-san, please pick it up, would you? I don't want to try to bend over just yet."

Kenshin nodded and left her side once he was assured she could stand up. He bent down and grabbed the handle, frowning as he realized the katana had not been sheathed.

"Tokio-dono, this one was out of its sheath," he said, turning around.

Tokio rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Jesus, these people, I swear," she said, rubbing the heels of her hands against her eyes.

Another loud crack was suddenly heard and the handle in Kenshin's hand broke into pieces and the blade slammed into the floor with a horrible clatter that echoed in the room, despite the fact that it wasn't acoustic-friendly. Kenshin stared at the blade on the floor with wide, horrified eyes, then looked up and found everyone staring at him in equal dismay.

"Oro?" he asked finally, feeling faint.

"Oh gods," Tokio said as she and Jin'e rushed over to where he stood.

Jin'e immediately began picking up pieces of the handle.

"The wood was rotten," he said.

"Oh gods don't tell me that!" Tokio wailed. "No! _Why_ is this happening to me?"

"Oh stop," Jin'e chided. "A handle can be replaced. How's the blade?"

"I'm afraid to look," she said, and he rolled his eyes and leaned over to see the damage for himself.

"It's been very badly scratched up, but I think that's the worst," he said after a moment. "No…wait…there's a nick near the tip. Can't tell if it's new or old, though." He pulled out his magnifying glasses and slid them back on, then carefully picked the blade up by the blunt edge. Except it wasn't quite blunt:

"What the hell?" he shouted, letting go of the blade, which once more fell to the floor, and Tokio went white as she watched it hit the floor.

"Oh gods," she croaked, and Saitou walked over, just in case she fainted, because she really didn't look too good.

"Oi, Kurogasa cut himself," Okita said, and Saitou, Kenshin and Tokio looked over at Jin'e and saw that his fingers were, in fact, bleeding.

"Udou-san!" Tokio yelped, horrified. She turned around. "Makimachi-san, please go ask one of the assistants for a first aid kit!"

"The cutting edge is on the wrong side," Jin'e murmured, and Tokio turned back to him.

"What?" she asked.

"The cutting edge is on the wrong side," Jin'e repeated. "Takagi-san, please take off my glasses—there's blood on my hands, and I don't want them to get dirty."

Tokio reached forward and slipped his glasses off, and he crouched down and stared at the blade.

"Udou-san?" Tokio asked after watching him anxiously in silence.

"I don't believe it," Jin'e said, then started laughing.

Tokio looked around at Saitou, who was still standing behind her. He met her gaze and they shared a look that said:

"If he wasn't totally gone before, he is now."

"Maybe the blood loss is getting to him?" Kenshin suggested, also looking like he seriously doubted Jin'e's sanity. Well, more than before, at any rate.

"Dude just cut his fingers, he hasn't lost enough blood to get loony," Okita said, coming over with Aoshi right behind him, both of them having silently decided that if Jin'e suddenly snapped and tried to kill someone, it'd be easier to help Saitou and Kenshin if they were closer.

"What don't you believe?" Tokio asked, holding his glasses against her chest.

"This is a sakabatou," Jin'e said, still laughing. "I thought it was a myth!"

"Sakabatou?" Tokio asked, confused.

"It's a katana where the cutting edge and dull edge are replaced," Aoshi explained. "I'll be damned. I always heard about them, but I just figured they were bullshit stories kenjutsu instructors told their students to mess with them. Like how Okita-san likes to mess with new recruits."

"Why would you reverse the edges on a katana?" Tokio asked, baffled. "Isn't that a little counterproductive?"

Okita shrugged.

"Maybe the swordsmith got drunk one night," he suggested.

"Then he got drunk more than one night," Jin'e said, having calmed down now, though he was still grinning in that creepy way of his. "Sakabatou were never as popular as regular katana, but there was more than one. Or that's what old records tell us. There are at least eight recorded instances of sakabatou being used. But most scholars agree that they are most likely the records of two or three separate sakabatou because of a few discrepancies here and there. As far as I was aware, no sakabatou survived the test of time.

"There are only two swordsmiths known for making sakabatou. Both were most active in the Meiji era before the government banned wearing swords in public. This isn't Meiji, however. This has Bakumatsu written all over it."

"Early work of one of two?" Aoshi hazarded.

"Can't be sure until I can look at it more closely, in better lighting." Jin'e looked up at Tokio, serious now. "Why didn't you ever show me this one?"

Tokio sent him a poor attempt at a smile.

"The museum's had this for years," she said. "The family that gave it to us said it was Bakumatsu, said they'd already gotten it appraised."

"That never stopped you before," he pointed out, looking very put out.

"Well, they had a certificate from the appraiser. Akira said that was enough. And just for the record, you're very expensive," she added.

"I have to make a living, you know," Jin'e returned, voice mild.

Misao returned with the first aid kit, and Tokio attended to Jin'e's fingers despite Saitou's scowl, and also provided him with a pair of latex gloves, which he snapped on. He took his glasses back from her, slid them on, then leaned down and picked up the sakabatou blade carefully and set it down on the table with the other katana, humming the whole time. Aoshi and Okita had quickly filled Misao in on what she'd missed while Tokio had attended to Jin'e, and everyone silently watched Jin'e examine the blade, after Tokio provided him with a lamp.

"This is definitely Bakumatsu," Jin'e said after bare seconds. "And what's more, it's the handiwork of one of the most prolific and successful swordsmiths of the age—Arai Shakkuu. That's his signature at the bottom over here." he added, tapping the bottom of the blade with his index finger and allowing the group to look at it before he carefully turned the blade over to examine the other side.

Okita whistled.

"Damn," he breathed. "We're in the presence of greatness, gentlemen."

Misao glared up at him and elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ow! And ladies," he added, frowning down at her and rubbing his ribs.

"But Arai Shakkuu made regular katana," Tokio protested.

"Oh so you've heard of him," Saitou commented, and Tokio sent him an offended look.

"My papa told me about him," she said snootily, and Saitou rolled his eyes while Okita pressed his lips together to keep from laughing at the two of them.

"Hey look," Misao said, pointing to the base of the blade. "There's something scribbled on it."

"That's just Arai's signature, Misao," Aoshi said patiently.

"We just saw his signature," Kenshin said, frowning as she squinted at the scribbling and tried to make it out. "And that's too long to be his signature anyway."

"Battousai's right," Jin'e said, and Kenshin grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "Would you stop calling me that you maniac?"

"So what is it?" Okita asked.

"It appears to be a poem," Jin'e said. "'Slashing myself, I have…trained countless blades…. My son reviles, but for my…grandson, I bleed'."

There was a long beat of silence, and then Tokio said,

"I think I'm gonna pass out."

"What?" Okita asked, alarmed.

"You realized what you've got here?" Jin'e asked with another one of his manic grins. "Smart girl."

"What's she got?" Aoshi asked.

"Arai Shakkuu's final masterpiece, missing for the last fifty-nine years." Jin'e replied gleefully. "According to lore, he gave his final katana, which was never drawn, to a shrine in Kyoto as a form of atonement for the deaths facilitated by his katana. It remained at that shrine until just after the Second World War."

"The _Shinuchi_?" Kenshin asked, looking stunned; it was a well-known story within kenjutsu circles, and as all the officers were proficient with katana, they were familiar with the account.

"Yes," Tokio murmured, looking a little ill. "The shrine burned down in the late forties, but they never found a trace of the Shinuchi in the ashes. There was a theory that the shrine-keeper's family saved it, but they neither denied nor corroborated the story. Oh gods, I really think I'm gonna pass out."

"Find something for her to sit on," Saitou ordered Okita and Kenshin, and both men set about looking for something sturdy enough to hold Tokio without falling over or breaking—they were pretty sure she didn't want to end up on the floor again.

"What about the family that donated it to the museum? Was it the same family?" Misao asked.

"Doubtful," Jin'e said. "They never would have donated it to the museum, not if they'd had it for all this time. A likelier story was that it changed hands a few times before it ended up here."

"Oh man, I have to talk to legal," Tokio said, dazed. "And I have to get more security—the press is going to have a field day with this."

"Saitou-san?" Aoshi asked, and Saitou turned from Tokio to his subordinate. "What if the sakabatou was what they were after?"

Saitou's gaze narrowed, and he turned back to Tokio.

"What are the chances Wu knew about the sakabatou?" he asked.

"I don't know," Tokio admitted. "If he took any interest in the exhibit at all, he didn't breathe a word of it to me. You'd have to ask Enishi."

"When is he getting back?"

"Depends on how long it takes for Kamatari to annoy him," Tokio said. "Actually, they should be showing up pretty soon—the most Enishi can stand Kamatari for is three hours. And that's stretching it, quite frankly."

"Here you go Tokio-san," Okita said, coming over with a crate under one arm. He set it down with a flourish, and Tokio nodded absently and plopped down onto it, frowning thoughtfully…at least until her behind met the crate.

"GAH!" she shrieked, leaping up off the crate, one hand on her butt. "Ow ow ow ow!"

Saitou rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Gods today can't end fast enough," he muttered.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 13: Good News For People Who Love Bad News:_

"Maybe the Queen's molestin' 'im in a love hotel somewhere," Okita suggested.

"Be serious!" Saitou snapped.

"I am," Okita replied mildly.

---

"Did it fall off the back of someone else's truck, or did he get it the good old fashioned way and break into someone's house?" Tokio muttered.

---

"Shit," Saitou snarled.

"He means hello," Jin'e said calmly, ostensibly to the people who were listening in on their conversation.

---

"Man, Saitou better get a cup," he said as he opened the door, still shaking his head. "Dude has no idea what he's getting into."


	13. Good News For People Who Love Bad News

**A/N:** Apologizes for the delay. I was laid up for most of the weekend with a particularly bad migraine (haven't had one that bad for some time now…), and then the power went out around 1:45 this afternoon and didn't come on until a little while ago. And since today was the first day I'd been feeling okay, I had to edit today instead of Friday and/or Saturday night, like usual. Trouble comes in threes, isn't that the old saying? I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop (knock on wood)….

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nothing. The cycle continues…(I'm such a nerd…).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

love hotels: God love the Japanese—they really are an ingenious people. I've mentioned these in passing a time or two, and they're not terribly important to the events in this chapter, but I figured, "Eh, why not? Useless information is fun to have." Love hotels are the Japanese answer to living in close quarters where privacy is at a premium; they provide a place for couples (legitimate and otherwise) to get in some "alone time" away from prying eyes. No one sees you go in, no one sees you go out. How's that for convenient. : ).

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Thirteen: Good News For People Who Love Bad News_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Jin'e took his leave some time later, after giving the sakabatou a thorough appraisal, and confirming his earlier statements definitively.

Tokio was still in shock.

Four o'clock found them in her office, where she was pacing around behind her desk, absently chewing on her thumb nail and waiting for Enishi to show up. Saitou, Aoshi, Kenshin, and Okita were also there. Aoshi and Kenshin were sitting on the couch, Okita was in one of the chairs in front of Tokio's desk, and Saitou was standing off to the side, arms crossed and face in its usual charming scowl.

"You keep pacin' like that, you'll wear a track in the carpet," Okita lazily remarked, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles.

"Can't sit," Tokio replied shortly.

"How about standing still?" Saitou dryly suggested.

"Can't do that either—too nervous," she said.

Saitou sighed in acute exasperation.

"Where in the seven hells is Yukishiro?" he asked irritably. "You said three hours tops. It's been nearly five."

"Maybe the Queen's molestin' 'im in a love hotel somewhere," Okita suggested.

"Be serious!" Saitou snapped.

"I am," Okita replied mildly.

Voices raised in argument could be heard in the hall, and Tokio visibly relaxed.

"Oh thank the gods—they're back," she said with a sigh of relief.

"How can you tell?" Kenshin asked.

"You touch my ass one more time and I'll break your fucking arm off and beat you to death with it!" Enishi shouted.

"That way," Aoshi murmured.

"Ah," Kenshin replied with a faint nod. "Of course."

The door to Tokio's office slammed open, and all the occupants beheld a thoroughly irate Enishi.

"I'll resign right now if you make me go out with this fucking pervert tomorrow!" he announced, then got a good look at the expression on Tokio's face. "Queen! We got a situation!"

Enishi walked into the room and Kamatari entered a few seconds after him, looking concerned.

"What happened? Another bomb threat?" he asked.

"Close the door," Tokio said.

"Oh shit, it's bad news," Enishi said.

"No," Tokio said quickly. "I—yes—maybe…just close the door."

Kamatari kicked it shut.

"What is it?" he asked, arms folded over his chest.

Tokio took in a deep breath, then let it out.

"We think we know what Wu was after," she said.

Enishi and Kamatari gestured for her to go on when she paused.

"The Bakumatsu katana."

Kamatari was the first to speak:

"Huh?"

"The katana with the wooden handle and sheath," Enishi snapped impatiently. "It was one of the first things ever donated to the museum."

"_Oh_—right," Kamatari said as realization dawned. "But I thought it wasn't worth that much."

"We did too," Tokio said, gaze flickering to Saitou before going back to Enishi. "And then today…when I called Udou-san and asked him to come by—"

"That maniac was here?" Enishi interrupted, and Okita nodded.

"Yup," he drawled.

"Suddenly my afternoon with the Queen doesn't seem so bad," Enishi muttered. "I can't understand how you can talk to the guy, Tokio."

"It helps if you don't meet his eyes directly," Tokio said, then shook herself. "Damn it Enishi, shut up a second! This is important!"

"Then spit it out already!"

"Play nice children," Kamatari said, tone warning.

"The katana isn't a katana—it's a sakabatou," Tokio said.

"Bullshit," Enishi said after a short, stunned pause. "We've had that thing for years—we would have noticed something like that."

"Not necessarily," Tokio replied. "When it was donated, we were told it was a katana, and since it had already been appraised, we didn't have any reason to think otherwise. If everyone thought it was just another katana, no one's going to be looking at it too closely."

"Oh come on! The freakin' blade's _backwards_! Even a baby could tell the difference!"

"Know many babies, do you?" Tokio snapped. "Look stupid, we haven't exactly been hiring the cream of the crop for the last three years, so it makes sense no one noticed."

"And what's the excuse for all the other years we've had the thing?" Enishi demanded.

"Well I don't know! But Udou-san showed us the blade, and it was reversed."

"We have the only known sakabatou still in existence," Kamatari said after a pause. "That's…wow," he decided on finally.

"That's not even the big news," Tokio said.

"There's _more_?" Kamatari asked, surprised. "Are you serious? Just having a sakabatou is huge boon—what could be better than that?"

"It's the long lost final masterpiece of Arai Shakkuu."

It was very quiet in the office for several long moments as Enishi and Kamatari stared at Tokio, their eyes looking ready to pop out of their skulls, jaws hanging open in a most unbecoming fashion.

"Arai Sha…Shakkuu's…final masterpiece?" Enishi asked, voice hoarse. "The katana that's been missing for almost sixty years? The one that disappeared without a trace from a Kyoto shrine in 1947? _That_ katana?"

"Yeah," Tokio returned, nodding.

There was another long stretch of silence as Enishi and Kamatari digested this information, and then Enishi let out a loud whoop that made everyone jump, scrambled forward and grabbed Tokio in a bear hug that caught her off-guard.

"He's so happy he's lost his mind," Okita observed.

"Enishi!" Tokio squealed, squirming. "Let me go!"

"We're saved!" he shouted, spinning her around and then setting her down. "We're fucking saved! Oh thank the gods!"

Tokio rolled her eyes and tugged her jacket back into order.

"Ahou," she muttered.

"Took the word right out of my mouth," Saitou quipped.

"Yeah? What else's she taken outta—YEOW!" Okita yelped as Saitou nonchalantly kicked him in the shin.

Saitou then left Okita to clutch his abused shin and mutter very uncharitable things about the amber-eyed man under his breath.

"Yukishiro," Saitou said. "Did Wu express any particular interest in the exhibit? Or the Shinuchi?"

Enishi paused in his celebration.

"Not really," he said finally, after several moments of thoughtful contemplation. "He was mildly interested in our katana collection, if it can be called that. And he's actually the one who helped us get the Taishou era katana."

"Did it fall off the back of someone else's truck, or did he get it the good old fashioned way and break into someone's house?" Tokio muttered.

Enishi glared at her.

"I'm not a retard Tokio, I wouldn't have authorized a deal on something stolen."

"How would you have known it was stolen?" Tokio demanded. "You didn't even know your little buddy was a wanted criminal."

"Oh fuck you," Enishi replied. "What's your problem anyway? We just got great news!"

"My problem is that I seem to be the only one who realizes what a major bitch this thing is going to be!" Tokio snapped. "I talked to legal, and the city of Kyoto may still have claim to it!"

"But it was donated to us," Enishi protested.

"It doesn't matter," Tokio replied, suddenly weary. "The circumstances of the Shinuchi's disappearance are still sketchy. If it was actually stolen, then…."

"They could take it back," Kamatari finished, and Tokio nodded.

There was a long pause.

"We don't have enough money for a big huge legal battle, you know," Enishi said, and Tokio nodded again.

"We'd have to give it up," she said quietly. "So I wouldn't start celebrating just yet."

"So what do we do?" Kamatari asked.

Tokio drew in a deep breath, then let it out.

"For now, nothing. I'm letting legal handle this."

"And the Shinuchi?" Enishi asked.

"It's been a little abused, so I'm going to take it over to Hiko-san, assuming he'll see me. He's in town for a convention, you know."

"Good choice," Enishi said with a nod.

"Hiko?" Kenshin asked sharply all of a sudden. "Hiko _Seijuurou_?"

Tokio looked over at him, blinking.

"Er…yes," she replied, and Kenshin went white.

"Oro," he croaked.

"Himura-san?" Tokio asked alarmed. "What's wrong?"

"Do you remember when this one spoke of a man who could drink saké twenty-four hours a day and never get tipsy, Tokio-dono?"

Tokio nodded.

"This one was referring to his former master and guardian, Hiko Seijuurou."

Tokio looked surprised.

"You were raised by Hiko-san?" she asked.

Kenshin nodded slowly, still looking a little ill.

"Oh dear," Tokio said.

"That sounds about right," Kenshin said with a nod.

"I didn't know Hiko-san liked kids," Tokio said thoughtfully. "He's always told me they were mouthy, disobedient little beasts that he didn't care for."

"He _doesn't_ like kids," Kenshin replied. "But this one's situation was…unique."

"What's that mean?" Okita asked, curious.

"It means what it means," Kenshin replied, and Aoshi smirked, while Okita glared at Kenshin and Saitou rolled his eyes.

"Forget it," the latter said to Okita. "Let the dimwit keep his secrets if he wants. We've more important concerns—like making sure neither Wu nor the Hirumas get their hands on the Shinuchi."

"It'll be perfectly safe with Hiko-san," Tokio assured the police inspector. "People mostly try to avoid getting into a confrontation with Hiko-san if they can absolutely help it."

"They get splattered if they don't," Kenshin offered helpfully in explanation, and Saitou stared at him.

"Oh, you must have been _fun_ for the shrink way back when," he said dryly, and Kenshin glared at him.

"Look who's talking," the red head replied.

"Crazy," Okita sang again, and Saitou whirled on him.

"One more note and _I'll_ splatter you," he promised.

Okita pouted.

"You have no appreciation for good music," he announced.

"And you have no brain," Saitou snapped. "Now stop it." He turned back to Tokio, missing the face Okita made at his back.

"How are you planning on getting it to the man?"

"I was going to deliver it to him myself," Tokio replied. "I figure I'll take the Shinuchi to Hiko-san, then go to the hospital to see how Akira-kun's doing."

"Sis called me yesterday, said he was still a little loopy from the anesthesia," Enishi piped up.

"Then they probably have him looped up on painkillers now," Tokio said thoughtfully.

"You're going to need an escort," Saitou said, bringing Tokio's attention back to him.

"Huh?"

"An escort—you're going to need one," he repeated. "Or did you think I was going to let you wander around Tokyo with a very important relic under your arm?"

Tokio sniffed.

"I do not have to wander around Tokyo, thank you very much—I know exactly where Hiko-san's staying. I sent him a bottle of saké."

"Just to send it?" Okita asked.

"Of course not," Tokio chided. "To be polite. And also because I was thinking of asking him to look at our katana collection anyway, and I knew if I sent him saké he'd be more open to the idea."

"Ah—a bribe," Okita interpreted.

"Yes, but I'd prefer you didn't call it that," Tokio replied. "It makes it sound very underhanded."

"It is." Aoshi pointed out.

"Well of course it is, but that doesn't mean we can't pretend we don't know that," Tokio returned.

"So who's watching Tokio-dono tomorrow?" Kenshin asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer to that already.

"We'll decide later," Saitou replied, and Kenshin raised an eyebrow in surprise; well that was…unexpected.

"Then it's gonna be between me, you and girly man over there, because the kid's gonna be getting the security team situated. Today was just scope day." Okita said, jerking his thumb lazily in Aoshi's direction.

"I'm aware of that," Saitou replied in vague annoyance.

"Oh!" Tokio blinked, looking over at Enishi. "I need to speak with Enishi," she announced, and everyone watched her, waiting for her to speak.

She glared at them.

"Alone, ahous," she snapped.

Okita let out a low whistle, obviously impressed.

"Wow," he said. "Tokio-san's startin' to sound like you, Saitou-san. You guys spend too much time around each other."

"Out damn it!" Tokio bellowed, and the men got moving, with Okita muttering how scarily similar Tokio and Saitou were becoming, and Saitou replying by smacking the back of his friend's head as hard as he could without killing him. A few of Okita's brain cells, however, probably didn't make it.

Once the officers and Kamatari had left and the door was closed, Tokio gestured for Enishi to sit down, which he did warily.

"What about you?" he asked, not liking that she had remained standing.

"I had an accident," she replied, frowning at the memory. "Udou-san and Saitou-san dropped me."

Enishi stared at her.

"What?" he asked finally.

"Never mind, it isn't important," Tokio assured. She sighed, then looked at him, gnawing on her lower lip. "I want to apologize for earlier," she said finally. "You were just trying to help and I acted like a brat. I'm sorry."

Enishi looked surprised.

"Did they drop you on your head?" he asked, baffled.

Tokio sent him a flat look.

"Enishi," she growled impatiently. "I'm trying to apologize here."

"We fight all the time, though," Enishi pointed out. "I'm used to it."

"But this was…it was uncalled for," she said. "I took out my bad mood on you."

"You always do that."

"Actually, since you usually cause my bad moods, I'm justified in taking them out on you," she returned and he looked thoughtful for a moment.

"All right," he said after a moment. "You have a point. I accept your apology."

"I'm not done, though," she said. "I insist you let me take you out to dinner to wherever you want, and I insist on paying for you, and I'm not gonna take no for an answer, so if you had any plans tonight, you're canceling them."

"Well if I have no say," he returned, amused. "You don't have to do this, you know."

"Quiet you," she replied. "You never say no to a free meal. It's a rule."

He grinned at her.

"All right," he agreed.

"Good—start thinking about where you want to go."

"Yes ma'am," he said with a lazy salute. "Was that it?"

She nodded, and he rose.

"Okay, I have to go look a few things over, since I spent the majority of my day protecting my ass."

Tokio smiled faintly.

"You know, you should take Kamatari's attention as a compliment," she said. "He doesn't try to molest just anybody."

"You seriously need help," Enishi muttered, and Tokio laughed.

"Oi," Enishi said, just before he got to the door. "Don't worry so much, okay? We'll be all right. It just looks bad now. This museum's been around for years, it ain't goin' anywhere. And there's not a chance in hell Akira would let the board get rid of you—he depends on you too much."

Tokio watched him, then smiled.

"Thank you Enishi."

He shrugged, then raised a hand.

"Later Boss."

"Later underling," she replied, and he made a certain obscene gesture with a certain finger, then opened the door and left her office.

Tokio sighed, then plopped down into her chair, and then hissed, a grimace on her face. With a sigh, she reached over and grabbed her phone:

"Sae, tell the officers they can come back in. And get me a bag of ice, please. As soon as possible."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saitou had been waiting outside the building for a couple of hours before the lights finally went out on a certain floor.

Just before the officers had left the museum for the day, Tokio had mentioned to him that she'd be eating dinner with Enishi tonight, and he hadn't asked too many questions, because he'd had plans of his own that didn't include her. But once he'd arrived at this building, he'd got to wondering why she'd be having dinner with Enishi. He doubted it was anything worth getting excited over—their relationship thrived on a certain sort of dysfunction that wasn't conducive to romance of any kind, unless it was of the highly dysfunctional sort, of course….

Damn it. Now he was paranoid.

Well…more paranoid than he'd been before, anyway.

At long last, the person he'd been waiting for stepped out of the building, and Saitou flicked the cigarette he'd been smoking away and straightened up off the car he'd been leaning against—his prey's car.

Jin'e grinned when he saw Saitou.

"Wolf," he greeted with a bob of his head.

"Kurogasa," Saitou said icily, eyes narrowed.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Jin'e asked agreeably.

"Just checking up on an old comrade," Saitou replied, and Jin'e laughed.

"Still got that twisted sense of humor, I see," he said, smiling manically.

"And you're as fucked up in the head as ever," Saitou observed.

"Not quite," Jin'e said. "I'm on a few medications that blunt the worst aspects of my personality disorder."

"How nice for you," Saitou drawled.

"I'm glad you approve."

"Whatever keeps you from going bat-shit insane."

The men eyed other in silence for a long time, sizing one another up.

"Here for a fight?" Jin'e asked at long last.

"Not tonight," Saitou said, and Jin'e grinned. "Tonight I'm after information."

"Going to beat it out of me?"

"If you prove difficult, I've got nothing against coaxing you into compliance," Saitou replied nonchalantly.

"Heh—still as ruthless as ever," Jin'e replied, eyes glinting with remembrance. "Battousai and the Demon Child've quieted down, but you haven't in the least. Then again, you always were a hard-ass."

"Done reminiscing?"

Jin'e chuckled lowly.

"All right Wolf," he said. "What information would you like?"

"Why aren't you dead?"

Jin'e smiled.

"I should have known," he murmured. "I'm not dead because the government decided not to kill a certifiably insane man. That's all."

"Then why aren't you locked up?"

"It's amazing what today's medicine can do," Jin'e said thoughtfully. "A few little pills, and a sociopath can function quite well in society, without ever causing a disturbance."

"Any sociopath not on medication can do that."

"Until they end up arrested for one too many attempts at outwitting the police."

Saitou inclined his head in acknowledgment.

"So how did a sociopath end up as an appraiser?"

"Couldn't you have hacked into the government files and gotten all the information you wanted?" Jin'e asked, tone bored.

"I don't like to use my old codes unless I have to," Saitou replied. "Now answer the damn question."

Jin'e smiled faintly.

"The powers that be didn't want me executed," he said. "I was never told why, but I suspect they wanted to keep me alive because I might prove useful in my former capacity some time in the future. Killing is, after all, my best and foremost talent."

"Give me something useful, or this will turn very unpleasant," Saitou said coldly.

"The Wolf baring his fangs?" Jin'e asked.

"And they're still quite sharp," Saitou assured.

Jin'e sighed and clasped his hands before himself.

"They gave me a choice—I could be locked up indefinitely in some state institution, or I could play by their rules and live in society with minimal interference on their part. I chose the latter."

"What kind of interference?"

"State appointed psychiatrist and psychiatric nurse to contain my disorder and administer my medication, having my office, residence and all phone lines bugged, and wearing a wire—in fact, they're probably listening in on this conversation very carefully as we speak." He grinned. "Don't be rude, Saitou: say hello."

"Shit," Saitou snarled.

"He means hello," Jin'e said calmly, ostensibly to the people who were listening in on their conversation.

"You wear a wire twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year?" Saitou demanded.

"Yes," Jin'e replied.

"_Shit_."

"You would have known that if you'd used your old codes," Jin'e chided mildly. "It's all in there."

Saitou didn't know whether to strangle the blond man or himself; both were looking equally good at the moment.

"And don't worry about getting in trouble with anyone," Jin'e added. "They won't bother. They just want to make sure I'm behaving."

"And the conversation at the museum earlier?" Saitou asked tightly, figuring that since "they" (whoever "they" was) had already heard it, there was no reason to try to speak in code.

"Your younger comrades were never members of the old department, and have no idea what we were talking about," Jin'e replied, and Saitou decided not to correct him, since that would mean he and Kenshin and Okita would get into _huge_ trouble. "And Takagi-san is a very smart woman who decided not to ask any more questions after you informed her that my old job was classified information—by the way, you probably earned a few points for that."

"As if that made a difference," Saitou muttered.

"You'd be surprised," Jin'e said with a grin. "They like it when we play their game."

"No, they know we have to play their game," Saitou said resentfully, suddenly glad Jin'e was wearing a wire and recording everything that was being said. "Just like we know they wouldn't help us if we decided to talk—they've got some great spin doctors."

"Ho ho—bitter are we?" Jin'e asked, sounding delighted.

"Where's the wire?" Saitou asked.

"It doesn't matter," Jin'e replied, and Saitou decided to take his word for it.

"You assholes can go fuck yourselves," Saitou said, and Jin'e threw back his head and laughed.

"Very nice," he said. "Been waiting a while for that?"

"Since the day they shut us down," Saitou affirmed. "Fine, I'm satisfied with what I have. But don't think I won't keep an eye on you myself, Kurogasa."

Jin'e shrugged, looking like he'd been expecting that.

"Join the club," he said.

"No thanks—I don't play well with others." Saitou dryly returned, and Jin'e chuckled.

"None of us did," he reminded the other man. "That's why they contracted us all in the first place."

"Don't remind me," Saitou muttered, turning and beginning to walk away.

"Wolf," Jin'e said and Saitou stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Be very careful with Wu. He's got some friends in high places."

"What do you know?" Saitou asked, eyes narrowed.

Jin'e shrugged again.

"Oh, nothing definite, but I hear things now and again—people have this odd idea that crazy people can't understand what's going on around them."

Saitou raised a curious eyebrow at that remark.

"Just tread lightly," Jin'e said, grinning. "There's a reason he's been able to hide out here for so long without arousing suspicion. Though after pulling this spectacularly stupid stunt, he may be shit out of luck and they may cut their losses. I'd keep my ear to the ground."

"I don't need advice from you, lunatic," Saitou snapped, and Jin'e chuckled.

"You should use those codes of yours and do a little digging," he continued. "You find the most fascinating things about people in the government archives…."

Saitou's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, voice quiet.

"Why nothing at all," Jin'e returned, grinning widely, and Saitou knew he was lying and enjoying himself immensely. "So what does Takagi-san know about you?"

Oh. Hell. No.

Saitou was back in front of Jin'e and had him by the throat in seconds.

"Don't threaten me, motherfucker," Saitou snarled. "Just because you're wearing a wire doesn't mean I won't rip your fucking head off right here, right now."

Jin'e smiled at him, serene despite his situation.

"I wouldn't dream of threatening you," he assured. "I was just curious."

"Don't be so curious," Saitou advised, then let go of him and shoved him away in the same move; Jin'e, still grinning, found his balance and calmly fixed his collar and tie.

"You're touchy," he gleefully observed. "She has no idea what you are, does she?"

"Shut up," Saitou warned, cracking his knuckles to drive home his point.

"Makes me wonder if your ex-wife knew."

Saitou punched him in the mouth as hard as he could, and was genuinely sorry he didn't knock out the man's teeth.

"I'm going to have to visit the dentist," Jin'e said as he spat out blood. "You knocked out one of my fillings."

"Too bad it wasn't one of your teeth," Saitou snapped, his left hand still fisted at his side, knuckles bleeding.

Jin'e let out a short bark of laughter.

"So violent," he said in amusement. "You know, maybe I _do_ feel like a fight. Haven't had one in so long…and you and Battousai were the only ones I ever really enjoyed going up against…."

Saitou smirked and slipped into his Gatotsu stance.

"Ready when you are, Kurogasa."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"So what are you gonna tell Akira?" Enishi asked.

He and Tokio were sitting in the restaurant of his choice, waiting on their orders and nursing drinks. Enishi had had mercy on her and picked a place that wasn't too expensive, since she was being so generous.

Tokio sighed and played with her flatware.

"I've decided I'm going to lie to him," she said, and Enishi raised an eyebrow.

"You mean we don't have any real good news for him?" he asked.

Tokio shook her head, face solemn.

"I'm sure if he hasn't heard about the bomb threat, Tomoe-san has," she said. "Wu and the Hirumas are still at large, and the board is still pissed about the way I was named Acting Director. We know what Wu might have been after, but we might not even be able to keep it—two steps forward, three steps back. We've got millions in damages and our accounts barely have enough in them to keep us in the black and replace what we've lost at the same time. Plus you and Kamatari have yet to agree on display cases."

"Not to mention Nakajima's being an asshole," Enishi murmured, frowning into his drink.

"That never changes," Tokio said, with a curt gesture. She sighed again and leaned her cheek against her fist. "I think I cursed myself when I told him I'd have nothing but good news for him."

"Maybe."

They sat in gloomy, contemplative silence for a long time, and then Enishi asked,

"So what's with your Inspector?"

"Huh?" Tokio asked, looking over at him, blinking.

"Saitou's about as agreeable as a kick in the ass," Enishi qualified. "You do that?"

"What makes you think I have any effect on Saitou-san's mood?" Tokio asked, deciding to play dumb because it was easier.

Enishi rolled his eyes.

"Oh _whatever_," he said with a snort. "The guy shadows you everywhere."

"He does not," Tokio replied, annoyed and a little embarrassed.

"He followed you into the restroom the other day," Enishi pointed out.

"I was sick that day," Tokio snapped.

"You were hung-over," Enishi corrected, pointing at her. "And you let the board get your nerves crazy, which didn't help. But that's not the point. The point is that the guy's touchy around you."

"He is not," Tokio replied tightly.

"So why does he always look like he wants to kick my face in?"

"Probably because you annoy him."

"Thanks."

"Everyone annoys him, you aren't special."

"Why did you invite me out again? Because if it was to beat the shit out of my self-esteem, you're doing a bang-up job."

"I'm sorry," she said, voice sincere. "I'm just…worried. I'm very worried."

"You need to relax," he advised, and she snorted and half-smiled.

"That's the advice that got me hung-over the other day," she muttered.

"Yeah, well, I said relax not get plastered," Enishi replied. "Look, we won't talk shop, okay? We'll talk about something else. How's your dad?"

"He's fine," Tokio said, immediately cheering up, as Enishi had known she would; her father was one of Tokio's favorite subjects.

They talked about her family until the food got there, and then she changed the topic again to Enishi's love life, which had been about as exciting as Tokio's until the night she'd gotten plastered.

"I could set you up with a friend of mine," she said thoughtfully as they were finishing up their meal.

"No," Enishi said emphatically. "I do _not_ do blind dates."

"Enishi," she said in exasperation.

"_No_," he said again, more forcefully than before. "_No_ blind dates."

"Gods—like I'd set you up with someone you didn't like! I've known you for years, Enishi."

"And you have no idea what kind of taste I have in women," he replied.

"Well you refuse to introduce them to me," Tokio accused. "I'm like family."

"Yeah—an overbearing, bossy older sister," Enishi shot back, and Tokio threw her napkin at him.

"Jerk," she announced. "I know lots of nice women I think you'd like."

"You can boss me around at work, Tokio, but you're nuts if you think I'm going to let you dictate my love life to me," Enishi replied. "Besides, if they're _your_ friends, I'm sure they're loony or something."

"_Such_ a jerk," Tokio said with a sigh, shaking her head. "I guess it's just as well—as charming as you are, you'd probably offend them."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." was Enishi's dry reply.

They finished their meal and Tokio paid for it, as promised (though Enishi insisted on picking up the tab for the drinks, since they hadn't been part of the original deal), and then they left the restaurant, Enishi offering to drive Tokio home.

"I don't see why you have a car," she said as he opened the passenger door for her. "Traffic in Tokyo is awful."

"I like the freedom of having a car," he replied. "Besides, I hate the train and the buses." And so saying he shut the door.

"You could take a taxi," she said once he'd opened his door and slid in.

"No way—who knows who used it before I did?" Enishi replied, looking affronted.

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"You're neurotic," she murmured.

"Maybe, but at least I know I'm not gonna pick up some weird disease by using public transportation," he said, starting the car and waiting for an opportune moment to pull out.

"What about a bike?" Tokio suggested. She raised an eyebrow. "Or do you have something against bikes?"

"Yeah I have something against bikes—I look like a dumb ass on 'em," Enishi replied.

"You mean _more_ of a dumb ass," Tokio sweetly corrected, and Enishi sent her a killing look.

"And she says I'm a jerk," he muttered.

"So," Enishi said once they were on the road. "We talked about my love life—it's time to talk about yours. What's the deal with your Inspector?"

Tokio groaned and slapped her forehead.

"I hate you," she said with a sigh.

"That's nice, but it doesn't answer the question."

"There is no "deal" with Saitou-san," Tokio replied wearily.

Enishi let out a snort of laughter.

"Pull the other one," he jeered. "You get weird around him."

"I do not," she snapped, annoyed.

"Do to," he shot back. "Like you said, you've known me for years—it goes both ways, sweetheart. And you're always a little hyper, but you go into meltdown when he's around."

"I do not!" she insisted, whacking him hard.

"Oi, quit that," he said. "I'm driving—wait 'til we're at a red light or something!"

She grumbled under her breath but settled down, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring out the passenger window. Enishi glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled.

"You get weird," he repeated.

"Oh shut up," Tokio muttered crossly, and Enishi snickered.

"You really _like_ him, you wanna _date_ him," he teased in an obnoxious voice and she shot him a withering look.

"I'll hit you again," she warned.

"Then you'll die, because that's what's gonna happen if I lose control of the car," he replied easily.

She grumbled some more under her breath and Enishi's grin widened, enjoying this immensely; he almost never got the chance to torment Tokio the way she tormented him, and this was truly a moment to relish.

"He looks like a total hard ass, though," he said thoughtfully. "Like he wouldn't know funny if it kicked him."

"He has a weird sense of humor," Tokio said stiffly. "It takes some getting used to."

"So how long you known him?"

"Eight years, six months," Tokio said without hesitation.

"Not that you're counting," Enishi said, tone absolutely serious, though he was very close to bursting out into laughter.

"I really really hate you right now," Tokio informed him.

"I figure it's your turn," he said with a smile. "So has your dad met him?"

Tokio frowned and looked over at him.

"Why would he have met Papa?"

"Just curious," Enishi said. "You afraid for him to meet the parents?"

"We're not together, Enishi," Tokio said. _I think, anyway_, she silently added to herself.

"No? Hm. Then I guess I could understand why you don't want him to meet your dad. How would you introduce him? I don't think your dad would be too happy if you introduced him as the guy you've been sleeping with."

"I'm not sleeping with him!" Tokio shouted, face flushing.

"Oh man—no _wonder_ he's in such a bad mood," Enishi said. "Tokio, come on, cut the guy a break and lay him already. I bet anything the mood goes away."

"I'm going to open the door and fling myself out of the car," she announced.

"Stop being so melodramatic," Enishi said with a laugh.

"Change the subject or I jump out," Tokio warned.

"Fine fine," he said. "Wouldn't want your Inspector to come after me, seeing as he's so fond of you. Spoilsport."

The rest of the drive was made with companionable conversation, and when they arrived at Tokio's house, Enishi courteously got out and opened the door for her and helped her out.

"You're being very polite tonight," Tokio said suspiciously. "You put grease paint on the seat, didn't you?"

"I was twelve and it seemed like a good idea at the time," Enishi replied.

Tokio smirked.

"I bet you thought it was the worst idea you'd ever had when I wailed on your skinny butt," she replied.

"I can't remember," he said. "In fact, there's a lot about that incident I can't remember."

"Must've been the concussion."

"Must've been," he agreed. He became serious as a thought occurred. "Hey…I know I said we wouldn't talk shop, but I just remembered…are we gonna be closed Monday like usual, or we gonna have people come in?"

Tokio pursed her lips.

"I hadn't even thought about that," she admitted. She sighed and scratched the back of her head. "I'm definitely going to be going in. But I don't think I'm going to ask people to come in. This has been a really…really crappy week, and it doesn't seem fair to take away their day off when I've been asking so much from them."

He tilted his head in acknowledgment.

"Well, if you're gonna be in, then I guess I'll come in too." he said. "Maybe we can sit down and do the budget then. Have you heard back from the historical societies?"

She nodded.

"Six are interested, but they all want to send someone in to look over things and assess how much need we're in," she replied. "I have to coordinate appointments so the reps can come in."

Enishi nodded absently, face thoughtful.

"Okay. We can still put together a skeleton budget, though. That way, once we know what we have to play with, all we have to do is tweak it a little here and there."

"Sounds like a plan," Tokio agreed. She sighed, then suddenly hugged him.

"What the hell?" Enishi asked, caught off guard.

"Thanks," she said, squeezing. "I may be Akira-kun's right hand, but you're definitely mine right now."

Enishi stood there, feeling awkward for a moment, before tentatively hugging her back.

"You're welcome," he said. He patted her back gently for good measure, making her laugh.

"You need to work on your hugs," she told him as she stepped away. "Women like to be hugged."

"I'll take that into consideration," he said dryly. "You gonna come by the office before you see Hiko and Akira?"

"Just long enough to pick up the sakabatou," she replied. She rolled her eyes. "And my shadow."

Enishi grinned and slid his hands into his pockets.

"Told you," he said in a sing song voice, then groaned when she punched him in the stomach.

"Good-night Enishi," she said sweetly.

He let out a gasp in reply that she took to mean "Good-night Tokio," and then she turned and walked up the walkway to her house.

It took a few minutes for Enishi to catch his breath and be absolutely sure he wasn't going to throw up, and once he had, he straightened, rubbing the spot she'd hit. He glanced over at the house, then shook his head and walked around to the driver side.

"Man, Saitou better get a cup," he said as he opened the door, still shaking his head. "Dude has no idea what he's getting into."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 14: The Shadow Knows:_

"I did _not_ pick a fight," he replied, exasperated.

"Riight," she drawled. "Sure you didn't."

"He started it," Saitou muttered.

"Very mature, Saitou-san."

---

"Good—by the way, you're on display case duty with Kamatari-chan again."

Enishi promptly scowled at her.

"I fucking hate you," he snapped.

---

Hiko sent her a very faint smile.

"Don't try to play mind games with me, little girl," he advised, "you'll never win."

---

"You'd make an awful psychiatrist," she observed.

"Then it's a good thing I never had an interest in becoming one, isn't it?" he replied dryly, and she rolled her eyes.


	14. The Shadow Knows

**A/N:** _looks at title of chapter and sighs. _I couldn't resist, guys, not after Enishi and Tokio referred to Saitou as Tokio's shadow last chapter. "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men…?" …I'm such a nerd it hurts….

**ALSO:** We get a little more of Kenshin and Tomoe's history in this one, guys, and due to the nature of that background, this chapter gets a little more serious than the last one. Just a little. Ah, and I've decided to ignore the Viz translation of Okita's first name, and go with the actual one, because it's been bothering me for a while now and I can't take it anymore ("Crazy…"). I'm going to be changing it in the previous chapters too, so if you go back to them, you'll see it changed there too (eventually). I'm only telling you all this so you don't suddenly think "Hey, wasn't that spelled different?" somewhere down the line, and then think you've gone crazy or something. It's a public service. Okay, shutting up now.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Zilch. Heh. …Is it scary that I'm enjoying this so much?

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Aizuwakamatsu: in modern-day Fukushima Prefecture. Aizuwakamatsu is the principal city of the area formerly known as the Aizu domain (according to Wikipedia, anyway; I'm sort of leery about trusting them, but they're all I've got at the moment).

Tokioko: According to the website Shinsengumi HQ, Tokio added "ko" to her name in the Meiji Era, following a trend of the time. Formally, she's known as Fujita Tokioko. So why am I mentioning this? You'll see….

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Fourteen: The Shadow Knows**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Tokio arrived at the museum the next morning, she found Saitou waiting for her, not that she'd been expecting someone else to be her escort for the day.

She hadn't been expecting his bruised and swollen jaw and cut up knuckles, however.

"What happened to you?" she asked, ushering him into her office to look over his injuries.

He shrugged.

"Nothing in particular," he nonchalantly replied, and she sent him a flat look as she tried to push him down into a chair.

As he was much taller than she was, it wasn't going too well.

"Sit down damn it!" she snapped, and he rolled his eyes and plopped down into the chair. She immediately leaned over him and began inspecting his jaw.

"Did you put ice on that?" she asked.

"Yes," he said patiently.

"What about your hands?" she asked, picking up his left hand and wincing in sympathy when she got a good look at his knuckles.

"Oh hells, woman, they're not that bad," he said.

"Oh no, not at all—they're just _bleeding_," she snapped, annoyed. "Tch, not that bad…_idiot_."

"Tokio, despite what you may believe this isn't the first time I've gotten into a…physical altercation," he decided on after a short pause.

Tokio glared at him.

"You picked a fight, didn't you?" she accused.

He rolled his eyes.

"Oh I did not," he said, exasperated.

"Yeah right," she muttered, looking over his knuckles. "Did you put ointment or something on them?"

"No."

"Well then I'll do it," she said, letting go of his hand and walking around behind her desk. "I think I have a little tube of some in my desk somewhere."

"I don't need ointment," he insisted.

"Those cuts'll get infected," she said, digging through her drawers.

"They will not," he replied.

"They will too—do you know how many germs your hands have?"

"No, and I don't care," he said. "I never put ointment on them when I cut 'em up before, and they've never gotten infected."

"Well I'm puttin' ointment on 'em now!" she snapped, pausing in her search to shoot him a scathing look. "So quit bitching and get used to the idea!"

He sighed and slumped down in his chair.

"Yes ma'am," he drawled.

Tokio soon found the ointment, and asked Sae to bring in a few bandages, and Saitou kept quiet because he was pretty sure he'd just get yelled at again.

She shrugged out of her jacket and tossed it on top of her desk, then grabbed the other chair and shoved it over closer to his, and sat down and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. He watched her pick up the tube of ointment and screw the cap off, and made a final, half-hearted attempt at protest, because he was secretly enjoying her concern:

"This is completely unnecessary," he began.

"Shut up," she ordered, taking hold of his left hand and laying it on her knee. She reached up, slid her glasses off the top of her head to perch at the end of nose, and then very gently applied ointment to his knuckles.

He pretended to be mildly annoyed.

"Who did you beat up?" she asked, bent over his hand.

"No one important," he replied.

"Well he was obviously important, if you got into a fight with him."

"Nope."

"So you just picked a fight for no reason?"

"I did not pick a fight," he replied, exasperated.

"Riight," she drawled. "Sure you didn't."

"He started it," Saitou muttered.

"Very mature, Saitou-san."

"Didn't we talk about that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes we did," she returned. She picked up his hand, crossed her legs, then replaced his hand on her knee and bent over a little more so she could see better.

"And what did we conclude?" he prodded when she didn't continue.

"That you have a name," Tokio said, and he sent her a flat look that she missed because she wasn't looking at him.

"Tokio," he growled.

"Oh stop," she replied, straightening and grabbing a tissue from the box on her desk to wipe the ointment off her fingers. "Geez—you have no sense of humor this early in the morning, do you?"

"According to Souji I have no sense of humor ever," he muttered.

She smiled and began to wrap up his knuckles.

"You do have a sense of humor," she assured. "It's just unique and selective. For example, when I'm teasing you about your name, you have no sense of humor. But, when you're making me miserable by calling me 'Chiisai', you have a sense of humor."

"You're annoying," he said under his breath, glaring at her.

She finished with his left hand, then reached over for his right, prompting him to sit up, her smile widening.

"You like it," she taunted, and he had to admit that she'd gotten him good with his usual reply to one of her complaints about his general personality.

She finished attending to his right hand, then dumped the tube of ointment, bandages and used tissues that had been in her lap on her desk and moved her glasses up to the top of her head.

"There," she said, looking pleased with her handiwork. "You can put your gloves on now without them irritating your knuckles."

"Uh-huh," was his reply as he carefully flexed his fingers; the skin was no longer tight and it wasn't painful to make a fist anymore.

"I think I'm going to give you the ointment," she said thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "You can put it on your knuckles again later tonight."

Her phone rang just then, and she got up and leaned over and picked it up before it finished ringing:

"Hello? Ah—good morning Sae, how are you? Good. I'm fine, thank you. Hm? No, I won't be staying. Do me a favor, would you? Get one of the assistants to very very carefully wrap up the Bakumatsu blade and bring it to my office. Yes, with the sheath as well. Oh, and I have a gift for Kiyosato-san that I want everyone to sign, so when you come in with my mail, I'll give that to you to take care of. I wanted to leave a little before eleven, so please make sure everyone's signed it by eleven thirty. Very good. And if anyone calls for me, I'm in meetings all day and can't be disturbed. No, no calls are to be forwarded to my cell phone. Of course you can call me if there's an emergency, I'll have it open all day. Oh! Remind Enishi-san that I expect him and Kamatari-san to go out and look for display cases. Yeah, use my standard threat—I'm not feeling very creative today. Okay. Thanks Sae. 'Bye."

"What did you get Kiyosato?" Saitou asked, curious.

Tokio sent him a mischievous grin, then reached into the shopping bag she'd set on her desk with her purse when they'd first entered her office, and produced a stuffed pig.

"I figure since his new valve is from a pig, it was very appropriate," she said, and he shook his head, smiling faintly.

"You're not well," he said, his amusement in his voice.

She shrugged, then set the pig down on her desk. She picked up the tube of ointment, turned back to him and leaned over and tucked it into the breast pocket of his coat, then patted it.

"There you go—remember to put it on your knuckles later tonight," she ordered.

"Yes Mother," he replied, and she rolled her eyes. She froze in surprise when he reached up and curled a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down and kissed her.

"Good morning Tokio," he said.

"Morning," she returned, dazed, and he chuckled lowly. "Wha…what was that for?"

"I told you before—you in a skirt and glasses does odd things to me."

She blushed and cleared her throat.

"Oh. Right," she said, and his grin widened.

A knock saved Tokio from further embarrassment; she stepped away from him and straightened, nervous hands tugging at her skirt.

"Come in," she called, and the door opened and Sae breezed in, Tokio's mail in one hand.

"One of the assistants will be in very shortly with the blade, Tokio-san," she announced, then caught sight of Saitou and bobbed her head. "Good morning Saitou-san."

He lazily returned her greeting with a nod of acknowledgment, and Sae returned her attention to Tokio, who stepped forward and took the mail from her.

"Thank you Sae—here, let me give you Kiyosato-san's gift," she said, walked back to the desk as she flipped through the mail.

She grabbed the pig and turned and tossed it over to Sae, who caught it and then looked down at it, faintly surprised.

"Go ahead and sign it," Tokio said. "Then make sure everyone else does. Kiyosato-san'll appreciate it."

Sae smiled and bowed.

"Yes ma'am. With permanent marker or a pen?"

"Hm…better make it permanent marker," Tokio said, pausing in her perusal of her mail to cock her head thoughtfully to one side. "I don't think a pen will show up as well."

"Yes ma'am. Eleven thirty?"

"Eleven thirty. Thanks Sae."

"You're welcome Tokio-san," Sae returned with a bob of her head, and she bowed to both her employer and Saitou before leaving the office, shutting the door behind her.

Tokio's phone rang again, and she reached over and answered it without looking up from her mail.

"Hello? Hello Hiko-san! You caught me at a great time—I was just about to leave to see Akira-kun." Tokio smiled as she plucked an envelope from the fat pile Sae had handed her and tossed the rest of them on her desk. She picked up her letter opener and cleanly ripped the top seam. "You liked my gift? I'm glad. A bribe? Why Hiko-san, whatever makes you say that? I wouldn't dream of trying to bribe you." She leaned against her desk and fished the letter out and scanned it. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh I do not. I do _not_. I almost never ask you for anything, you liar. …That was one time, and you know it. Cranky old goat. …Well you're neurotic and antisocial. Oh you aren't? Well then what do you call living on a mountain outside of Kyoto by yourself? Yeah right, whatever. Ha! You love me and you know it, otherwise you wouldn't have lunch with me whenever you came to Tokyo! You're such a liar! Well fine then, I want my saké back. I'm not going to let you keep it if you're going be so unappreciative…heh, seen the light, have you? Twelve thirty sounds fine. All right, see you then. 'Bye Hiko-san."

She held down the hook in the phone cradle for a few moments, then let go and dialed a number. She read over the letter as she was waiting for whoever she'd called to pick up.

"Hello? Enishi, another historical society just sent us a letter. Yeah. I'm going to leave it on your des…well how long? I'm going to be here until eleven thirty. Uh-huh. Okay, I guess. Actually, I just talked to Hiko-san. Uh-huh. Yeah, we're on for lunch. Okay. Okay I'll see you in a bit. 'Bye."

She hung up the phone this time, then reached over and grabbed her stapler and stapled the letter to the envelope it had come in, then tossed it onto her desk. Then, she crossed her legs at the ankles and looked over at him.

"Do you want something to eat?" she offered.

"No," he replied, standing. "I'm not interested in food right his minute."

She immediately caught his drift:

"Saitou-san," she said, eyes going wide.

"We talked about that," he reminded her as he planted his hands on either side of her, trapping her between his arms.

"Bu-but Sae—" she protested.

"Is busy."

"But the assistant—"

"Will knock."

"Enishi—"

"Isn't here yet."

And so saying he leaned down and kissed her again.

The man was nothing if not persuasive: it took exactly a second for him to convince her that her office was as good a place as any to make out, despite the fact that Tokio knew the opposite to be true. She worked with gossipy people, who loved nothing better than to get together during their lunch hours and swap office rumors; even the ever-faithful Sae was not immune to that particular failing.

She also worked with people who had the annoying tendency to interrupt her right when she didn't want to be interrupted: she never heard the door open, but she did hear when someone very loudly cleared his throat, and when she peeked over Saitou's shoulder, she found Enishi watching them with amusement twinkling in his eyes:

"Taking my advice, I see," he said.

"Go to hell," Tokio snapped, flushing, and she slipped out from under Saitou's left arm and put the desk between them.

"You've got lousy timing," Saitou informed Enishi as the former returned to his seat.

"Well you two need to put out some kind of signal or something," Enishi said, shutting the door behind him and walking over to Tokio's desk. "Like hang a bra or something on the doorknob."

Saitou raised an eyebrow, then sent Tokio a speculative look.

"Now there's an idea," he said with a smirk, and she shot him a withering look.

"Don't be cute," she snarled. She turned her gaze over to Enishi. "And as for you—"

"Aw come on," Enishi said, plopping his briefcase down onto the other chair. "It's too damn early for a fight."

"Never stopped us before," Tokio shot back.

"I'm still recovering from last night," Enishi dryly replied, referring to the literal parting shot she'd given him in front of her house.

"I didn't hit you that hard," Tokio muttered.

"Whatever," Enishi said, rolling his eyes. "Where's the letter?"

In reply, Tokio picked it up and handed it over to him, and he accepted it and read through it, then whistled.

"Man," he said. "They'd be willing to give us that much? Maybe we should forget the other six."

"That depends on the rep," Tokio reminded him, sitting down.

Enishi pursed his lips.

"True—if we got a real asshole we might get squat." He looked up at Tokio. "What's the plan?"

"I'm going to call them and set up an appointment today," she replied, anchoring her chin on her hands. "They're first priority. If we can get a little extra help from the other organizations, so much the better, but this one is giving us the most incentive to cooperate."

Enishi nodded, then looked back down at the letter.

"All right, I'll file this with the others," he said.

"Good—by the way, you're on display case duty with Kamatari-chan again."

Enishi promptly scowled at her.

"I fucking hate you," he snapped.

"I know," Tokio breezily returned. "You know, the faster you two agree on a type, the faster this ends."

"I still don't see why you can't do it," Enishi muttered, grabbing his briefcase.

"Yes you do, you just choose not to to be difficult," Tokio said. "Just get it over with, Enishi."

"You didn't exactly make it easy on me, you know," he complained. "You said no plastic, and that's the cheapest material we can get!"

"No plastic!" Tokio snapped.

"It's the only thing that'd fit into our budget, damn it! Gods above you're pigheaded!" Enishi looked over at Saitou. "Think long and hard before you get in any deeper, man. It's just gonna get worse."

Tokio threw her stress ball at him and got him right in the temple.

"Ow damn it!" Enishi bellowed.

"Get out!" Tokio snapped.

"Well fine, if you're gonna throw crap at me!"

He left the office, slamming the door shut behind him, and Tokio blew a raspberry at the portal.

"And then she talks about me," Saitou murmured, amused. "Yukishiro get your panties in a twist by giving me advice?"

"Oh shut up," Tokio grumbled, picking up her phone to call the historical society. She paused when she realized Enishi had taken the letter before she'd had a chance to get the number down. "Damn it all to hell," she growled, slamming the handset down and rising. "Enishi!" she bellowed, striding to the door. "Give me the damn letter—how am I supposed to call the historical society without the number!"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

At eleven forty, Tokio and Saitou left the museum with Akira's pig and the very carefully wrapped Arai blade and sheath in tow. Saitou had borrowed one of the precinct's unmarked cars for the errand, a nondescript black sedan.

"They wouldn't give you a black and white?" she asked as she set the pig and the sakabatou remnants down in the back.

"Why?" he asked in obvious amusement. "Did you want to play with the siren?"

"Actually, that didn't occur to me, but now that you mention it, that sounds like it would have been fun," Tokio replied.

"I requested an unmarked car," he said, opening the passenger door for her. "Less conspicuous this way."

Tokio shrugged and slid into the car.

"You're the cop," she said.

She gave him the directions to the hotel Hiko was staying at, and they arrived a few minutes after twelve thirty because of the traffic.

"Have I ever mentioned that I despise people?" Saitou asked Tokio as they hurried up the hotel stairs, the wrapped blade under her arm.

"Once or twice," Tokio returned.

They asked for Hiko at the front desk, and were told he'd waltzed into the dining room at exactly twelve thirty. Tokio thanked the man, then grabbed Saitou's hand and tugged him along after her in the direction the concierge had pointed.

Saitou was a little curious about Hiko, and wondered what the man was like, considering Kenshin's reaction to hearing the man's name and Tokio's response to learning that Hiko had raised the red head.

As it turned out, Hiko Seijuurou was a bear of a man with a very handsome face and hair longer than was fashionable, tied back in a queue for the most part. He sat alone at a table in the back, and there was a ceramic saké set on the table in front of him.

Saitou's first conclusion of him was that he did not look friendly.

His second was that this man was incredibly dangerous.

"Hello Hiko-san," Tokio cheerfully greeted once she got to the table. She let go of Saitou's hand and leaned over and kissed Hiko on the cheek.

"You're eight minutes late," Hiko said, sipping his saké.

Tokio didn't look at all put off by his statement.

"Yes well, I'm sorry about that—you know how the traffic in Tokyo is."

"Who's that?" Hiko asked, eyeing Saitou suspiciously.

"Oh how rude," Tokio said, turning to Saitou. "This is Assistant Inspector Saitou Hajime of the Bunkyo Ward police—he's the officer in charge of investigating the break-in."

"Hm." was Hiko's response.

The two men eyed each other, sizing each other up, and Saitou knew instinctively that if he were ever to get into a fight with this man, there was a good chance he might not win—and that if he did somehow, it would be very very close.

"Hiko Seijuurou," Hiko said at long last, and Saitou nodded ever so slightly in acknowledgement.

Tokio nudged Saitou and he looked down at her. She gestured to the table, and he nodded.

"I didn't invite you two to sit," Hiko said dryly, and Tokio sent him a wide smile.

"Oh, I didn't realize you wanted us standing over you while we had this meeting, Hiko-san."

Hiko sent her a very faint smile.

"Don't try to play mind games with me, little girl," he advised, "you'll never win."

Tokio snapped her fingers.

"Damn," she said, and Hiko shook his head.

"Sit," he said, and they did so, Saitou pulling out her chair for her.

"So what do you want from me this time?" Hiko asked, pouring more saké into his cup.

Tokio frowned at him.

"I resent the implication that I only come to see you when I want something from you," she said.

"It's the truth," Hiko replied nonchalantly.

"It is not—I always go out of my way to see you in Kyoto when I visit my uncle in Aizuwakamatsu, and not to ask for favors, either, thank you very much." she said with an offended sniff.

Hiko raised an eyebrow but didn't reply:

"Well?"

Tokio gnawed on her bottom lip.

"You remember how I mentioned to you once that we had a Bakumatsu katana that I thought you might like to look at?"

"Three years ago," Hiko said with a nod.

"Well, I brought it with me today," she said, sliding the package toward him. "Only it isn't a regular katana—it's a sakabatou."

Hiko snorted.

"Sakabatou," he muttered. "You know I don't have anything to do with sakabatou, Tokioko."

Tokio twitched ever so slightly at the name (and Saitou frowned, wondering why in the hell Hiko would call her that), but she didn't say anything about it.

"Not even one forged by Arai Shakkuu?" she asked instead with a sly smile, and Hiko sent her a sharp look.

"Arai Shakkuu never forged a sakabatou," Hiko said.

"Really?" Tokio drawled. "What about the Shinuchi?"

"The Shinuchi was a katana."

"Sure about that?"

Saitou hid a smile; apparently, Hiko had misjudged Tokio's abilities, because unless he was grievously mistaken, the big man was beginning to doubt himself.

"Who appraised it?" Hiko asked after a long pause, wherein he'd watched Tokio with a rather ferocious look on his face.

"Udou-san."

It appeared Hiko was familiar with Jin'e's appraising talents, because he sobered a little.

"And he said it was Arai's Shinuchi?" Hiko asked.

Tokio nodded; Hiko rubbed the underside of his chin thoughtfully, lips pursed, then knocked back the rest of the saké in his cup.

"We're going up to my suite," he announced, rising abruptly. "I want to see it for myself, and this is no place for that."

Tokio bobbed her head in gracious acknowledgement, and also got her feet, Saitou with her.

"Very nice, Acting Director," he murmured, and she smiled faintly.

"Why thank you Inspector," she murmured in reply. "I thought you might appreciate that."

They accompanied Hiko up to his suite on the sixteenth floor. Once there, the big man threw off the (rather flamboyant, in Saitou's opinion) white duster he'd been wearing and demanded that Tokio hand over the Shinuchi, which she did.

They settled down in the sitting area while Hiko looked over the Shinuchi in silence, his face unreadable.

"I'll be damned," Hiko said finally. "This really _is_ the Shinuchi."

Tokio smiled.

"And to think—when I called you, you thought I just wanted to waste your time." she teased.

"You like to annoy me," Hiko replied, smirking faintly. "What else was I supposed to think?"

"I'll take the saké back," she warned.

"Not unless you want a urine sample," Hiko replied sweetly with a full-on smirk, and Tokio glared at him. "You didn't honestly think I was going to risk you taking it back when you got here, did you?"

Tokio shook her head.

"How are you able to function?" she asked, truly bewildered. "I don't think I've ever seen you drink anything but saké in the five years I've known you."

"It's a talent I guess," Hiko said nonchalantly.

"Or maybe he's just a professional drunk," Saitou dryly supplied.

"That sounds more likely," Tokio agreed with a nod, and Hiko sent them a flat look that clearly said "WE are not amused."

Whoever "we" included.

"So Hiko-san," Tokio said, clearing her throat. "What do you think?"

Hiko's disgruntled expression became thoughtful.

"It's been scratched all to hell pretty badly, which sort of makes me wonder what the hell it was being used for before the museum got it. It was probably abused on and off—the damage is random and erratic. And since the poem and the signature were hidden, I'm sure nobody minded. Sakabatou don't inspire the same reverence regular katana do. Mostly, the opinion is they're little better than toys."

"And the nicked edge?" Tokio asked.

"That I don't know about," Hiko admitted. "I'll see what I can do about it. The scratches I can take care of, at least the ones that aren't too bad. I'm pretty sure the nick can be taken care of too, but I won't know for certain until I get it in the shop."

"And how long would that take?"

Hiko glared at her.

"No!" Tokio immediately protested, waving her hands back and forth. "I'm not trying to rush you or anything, honest! It's just we still have a lot of pieces out with other restoration companies, and we're all a little nervous about so many pieces being in so many different hands."

The large man inclined his head in acknowledgment.

"I can't say for certain, but give me at least a week," Hiko said finally. "Once I get back to Kyoto, this takes top priority."

Tokio grinned widely, then bounced up and went over to Hiko's side and hugged him.

"I love you!" she squealed. "You're the best!"

"Send me more saké and I'll believe you," Hiko said dryly, though he smiled faintly and patted her head.

"Give me the money and I'll work on it," Tokio shot back. "You aren't cheap, Hiko-san."

"Damn right I'm not," Hiko said with a jerk of his head, and Tokio laughed.

Hiko was feeling generous, so he fed them before unceremoniously kicking them out, and Tokio left the hotel with a wide grin on her face.

"That's one thing taken care of," she said with a sigh when she plopped down into the passenger seat. "Now I just have five hundred million others left."

"That's an optimistic outlook," Saitou dryly replied when he got into the driver's seat.

"I really am happy Hiko-san was receptive," she said seriously. "I had a tiny little worry that he might be in a mood and not want to hear me out—being the natural hermit that he is, crowds of people irritate him."

"Is that where the reverse psychology came in?" he asked as he started the car.

Tokio grinned.

"Hm—_maybe_," she drawled, and Saitou smirked faintly.

"I'm glad that crap doesn't work on me," he said.

"Really?" Tokio asked, one eyebrow shooting up. "Know that for a fact, do you?"

"That's right."

"Hm," was her amused response. "If you say so."

"So I'm curious," Saitou said as they drove off and started for the hospital. "Why would Hiko call you 'Tokioko'?"

Tokio twitched again at the name, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Because he's an evil, evil man," Tokio muttered.

"No, really."

"I wasn't joking."

"Chiisai…."

She made a sound of annoyance low in the back of her throat, then sighed and glared out the windshield.

"My full name is Takagi Tokioko. I dropped the "ko" after high school, but when I first got my job at the museum, Papa had business cards printed up for me and he had them put my full name on them. I didn't have the heart to toss them out or send them back, so I used them, and Hiko-san just happened to get one of them. He insists on calling me by my full name even though he knows I hate it—actually, I'm about ninety-nine percent sure that's why he uses it. He's special like that. Sort of like you."

That sparked another long discussion that didn't let up until they got to the hospital.

"All I'm saying is that you derive a lot of pleasure out of annoying me, Saitou-san," she said as they walked into the hospital, Tokio holding the shopping bag with Akira's pig inside.

"Damn it woman we've talked about that!" he snapped, vaguely irritated.

Tokio sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Okay, you have to pick one: either we're arguing about your sense of humor, or that," she informed him with a pointed look.

"We'll argue about both if I damn well feel like it," he shot back.

"It's impossible to fight about two things at the same time, Saitou-san."

"Tokio, I will _strangle_ you if you call me that one more time. And if you don't think I'll do it, _say it_."

"Have I told you that you're insane?" she asked dryly, getting irritated herself now.

"Once or twice." he returned through gritted teeth.

She didn't bother to ask where Akira's room was, which Saitou assumed meant she knew which room he was in, and they caught the elevator up to the fifth floor, now bickering about her calling him "Saitou-san."

The fact of the matter was that it bothered him that she insisted on keeping up the pretense of formality when they were alone. Not that she needed to call him "Pookie" or anything (and he _really_ didn't want her calling him "Pookie"—a man had his dignity, damn it, and there was nothing dignified about being called "Pookie" by a woman, no matter how great her legs were), but he didn't see the big deal with her calling him by his first name, especially since he called her by hers.

When he wasn't torturing her with "Chiisai," of course.

"We'll discuss it later," Tokio said finally as they were walking down the hall toward Akira's room. "I'm not having this argument in front of Akira-kun or Tomoe-san."

"Don't say that unless you're going to follow through later," he warned, deciding to give in because they were starting to get looks from people and Saitou disliked making a public spectacle of himself. "Because I'm not above making you."

"Believe me, I'm quite aware of that," she replied dryly. "We'll drop it for now and talk about it later. Deal?"

The pads of his fingers ghosted down her spine.

"Deal," he drawled and she flushed slightly and batted his arm away.

"Stop that," she hissed.

"Stop what?" he asked innocently, eyes glinting, and she rolled her eyes.

"You're insufferable."

"Really," he said lazily, smirking faintly.

"I _will_ hurt you Inspector," she warned.

"Good thing we're at the hospital then, isn't it?"

"I'm not talking to you anymore." she decided.

"Uh-huh—that'll work for all of two seconds."

"Will not." she immediately snapped in irritation, proving him right, and Tokio glared at him when he smirked in triumph.

They arrived at Akira's room not long after, and Tokio knocked on the closed door.

"Come in," Tomoe's voice called, and Tokio cracked the door open and peeked her head in.

"Surprise," she cheerfully said, flashing Akira and Tomoe her best and most convincing fake smile and hoping they wouldn't notice—it was hard to trick people who'd known you since childhood.

Akira, hooked up to various machines and with breathing tubes in his nose, sent her a groggy smile.

"Tokio-chan," he said, sounding drowsy but still happy to see her.

Tomoe, sitting in the room's only chair by her husband's bedside, had an odd sort of expression on her face—she was pleased to see Tokio, but also a little…angry, perhaps?

Tokio quailed a little inside.

_Aw crap—she saw the bomb threat story_, she thought, her smile never leaving her face.

"Tokio-san," Tomoe politely greeted bobbing her head. "We were wondering when you'd come by."

"Yeah, well I had to leave the museum for a meeting today, and since I was out and about, I thought it would be the perfect time to drop in," Tokio glibly replied, walking into the room, Saitou sauntering in behind her and then leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and eyes scanning the room.

Tokio went over to Akira's bedside.

"How you feelin' Boss?" she asked kindly, taking up his hand.

"Eh, I've been better," Akira said with a wry smile. "But I'm okay. The doctor said the operation went off without a hitch, and they've been checking up on me regularly to make sure the new valve's working."

"Well everyone's going to be happy to hear that," Tokio replied. "Anji-san's been saying some extra prayers on your behalf."

Akira chuckled.

"Tell him I appreciate it, and that they're working great," he replied.

Tokio smiled in return, then held up the bag.

"And speaking of the employees sending you good luck, I've got something for you."

Akira laughed weakly.

"It's not a snake is it?"

"That was a harmless rubber snake and I was eight," Tokio replied. "And I didn't know you didn't like snakes, either."

"You sure learned it that day," Akira murmured, and Tokio sent him a repentant look. "All right, what is it?"

In answer, Tokio reached into the bag and pulled out the pig.

"Oink oink," she cheerfully said, and Akira laughed and reached out and accepted his gift.

"You're demented," he said, still laughing.

"I thought you'd like it," she said, smiling widely. "Everyone at the museum signed it, too."

"Aw," Akira said, seeing the various signatures all over the pig. He looked up at Tokio, affection and appreciation in his gaze. "Tell them all thank you for me, Tokio. And thanks."

She smiled back at him and leaned down and carefully hugged him.

"You're welcome." she returned, kissing his cheek. "And we're all looking forward to our new and improved Bionic Boss."

Akira chuckled, setting the pig down beside him.

"I don't know about Bionic Boss, but I'm definitely going to be improved all right," he said. He patted the pig affectionately, then sighed and looked up at her. "So. How's the museum?"

"Great," Tokio immediately assured. "Everything's moving along really well. The glass is all cleaned up and the lighting company's finishing up putting in the new lights, and I've got our security provider coming in next week to install the new cameras. Kamatari-chan and Anji-san are getting their teams together to start putting everything back up once the cameras've been installed. Enishi and I are working on a new budget, and I already talked to the board, so we're good with them."

Akira nodded.

"How much did we lose?" he asked calmly, and Tokio blinked.

"Huh?" she asked, thrown off.

"What did they take?" Akira qualified.

"Oh. Nothing."

It was Akira's turn to blink:

"'Nothing'?" he parroted.

"Nothing," she affirmed with a nod.

There was a long pause as Akira digested this news.

"That's…are you sure?" he asked, obviously baffled.

"Positive," Tokio replied. "Everything's accounted for. They didn't lift a single item."

"Then what was the point of breaking in?" Tomoe asked, looking just as confused as her husband.

"We think they were looking for something specific," Tokio began, and Saitou noticed how careful she was not to let on that she knew exactly what the Hirumas had been after. He wondered why she wouldn't share the news of the Shinuchi's appearance with her boss, but he knew better than to say anything—if she wasn't saying anything, there was a good reason for it, so he kept quiet and decided to trust her judgment.

She told Akira and Tomoe who the would-be thieves were (but didn't mention Wu at all, he noticed with interest), and then introduced him and asked him to explain the investigation so far. He took his cues from her and gave a brief, concise and completely maddening report, and he could see in Akira and Tomoe's eyes that they were frustrated by the lack of information. He also clearly saw that they didn't appear to want to press him for more.

And Okita said there was nothing _good_ about his sometimes abrasive personality….

Tomoe excused herself at one point to go fetch the doctor—it was time for Akira to be checked up on and the man was late—and Tokio sat down in the chair Tomoe had vacated and chatted a while longer with Akira, making the other man laugh and slowly but surely leading him away from thoughts of the museum. Saitou watched her from his post by the door and smirked faintly to himself; no doubt about it, his Chiisai was an underhanded, manipulative little thing when she wanted to be, and she was good at it, what's more. He'd have to watch her and make sure he never let her sucker him in the way she had Kiyosato, or he was screwed royally.

At long last, Tokio looked down at her wristwatch and made a low noise.

"Ooo, I gotta get back to the museum," she murmured. "I haven't been in since eleven thirty."

"Oh gods," Akira said with a faint smile. "Do you think it's still there?"

"Hm." Tokio pretended to consider this question seriously. "Well if it isn't, I'm blaming Enishi, because I was out."

Akira chuckled and shook his head.

"Gods help Enishi, then—knowing you, you'll convince the board to press charges against him."

"I'd never do any such thing," Tokio replied, offended. "I might let him sit in the pokey for a while, but I'd never accuse him of arson or whatever. They'd toss _me_ into the pokey if they found out I was lying, right Saitou-san?"

"Oh, so you remembered there was an officer in the room?" Saitou dryly inquired.

"At the last minute, yes," Tokio said cheerfully.

Akira chuckled again, and sighed.

"Thanks Tokio-chan," he said. "I was a little worried you might not be able to handle this, but it's obvious you've got everything under control."

Tokio's smile twitched ever so slightly.

"Yup," she said after a moment. "Everything's great."

_…In fact, everything's so great it's going down the tubes_, she thought, smiling widely.

She and Saitou left Akira's room after taking their leave, and Tokio looked up and down the hall then grabbed his hand and yanked Saitou after her.

"We have to get the hell out of here before—" Tokio frantically said.

"Tokio-san!" Tomoe called from the other direction, and Tokio gritted her teeth:

"_Crap_."

Tokio sighed, let go of Saitou's hand and turned around to face Tomoe, who was striding over to where they stood.

"You're slow," Tokio said through her smile.

"And you're eight," Saitou muttered.

"Leaving already?" Tomoe asked, voice neutral, when she reached them.

"Yeah, I haven't been back to the museum since eleven thirty, and it's almost four," Tokio replied. "I told Akira-kun to tell you I said 'bye—"

"What happened?" Tomoe interrupted quietly, and her expression left no doubts in Tokio's mind as to whether or not the other woman had caught wind of the bomb threat.

_Oh hells._

"What exactly are you referring to?" Tokio asked carefully. "It's been a…an exciting week, and lots of things have happened."

"Tokio-san, please don't make this more difficult for yourself," Tomoe replied calmly.

Tokio pursed her lips; Tomoe wasn't the sort to make threats, and technically, that wasn't a threat per se, but it was pretty damn close as far as Tokio was concerned.

She sighed.

"Tomoe-san," she said wearily, "honestly, it was nothing. Just some jerk with a really crappy sense of humor."

Tomoe eyed her silently, a vaguely accusing look on her face, and then her eyes slid over to Saitou.

"Is this true, Inspector?" she asked quietly, and Tokio had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she'd regret later, because Tomoe had every right to think she was being lied to.

"Yes," Saitou replied without a second's hesitation. "The note was amateur and it's our opinion that it was nothing but a tasteless joke. We are, however, treating it with utmost seriousness, and once the perpetrators have been caught, we'll hand them over to the proper authorities to be prosecuted."

Tomoe didn't look convinced, but either she'd realized that Saitou was going to follow Tokio's lead or she didn't think she'd be able to get more out of him.

"All right," she said quietly, gaze returning to Tokio. "It's not like I can do anything anyway."

Tokio tried to ignore the ache in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't going too well, she decided when she absently rubbed at a spot just below her sternum.

"Was there anything else, Tomoe-san?" she asked.

Now Tomoe's expression closed.

"Yes," she said, her voice strangely clipped. "There was a man…with red hair."

_Oh holiest hell of hells_, Tokio thought, the ache in her stomach getting worse. _Why me why me **why me**?_

"You mean Himura Kenshin?" Tokio offered, managing to sound as if she had no idea why Tomoe would be asking.

She didn't miss the way Tomoe stiffened ever so slightly at the sound of the name.

"So it is him," the other woman said finally. "I was fairly sure, but…." Her expression turned accusing again, and Tokio bit back a groan. "You didn't say anything—why would you keep his being there from me?"

"Tomoe-san, I had no idea you knew Himura-san," Tokio lied. "But all the same, if you want him off the case, I'm telling you now that I'll fight you the whole way. He's one of the best the MPD has to offer, and I'm not compromising the investigation because there's bad blood between you and Himura-san."

Tokio had been dreading this moment since she'd found out Kenshin and Tomoe had some kind of history, because she wasn't foolish enough to think Tomoe wouldn't notice Kenshin's presence at some point.

On the whole, she and Tomoe had a very polite and formal relationship despite being the same age, because when they'd been growing up they'd moved in different circles, though they'd been aware of each other. Tokio was closer to Enishi only because they'd both been involved in martial arts and overall shared more in common than Tokio and Tomoe. Even Tokio's being Akira's favorite cousin and having so much constant interaction hadn't brought the two women any closer; it was enough for them that they'd always gotten along.

Of course, they'd never really had cause to declare "war" before either.

_I don't need this crap_, Tokio thought despondently. _I've got more important_ _things to be worrying about, damn it._

"I have no intention of asking for Kenshin's removal from the investigation," Tomoe replied, voice soft, and Tokio stared at her for a moment in surprise.

"Uh…you don't?"

Tomoe shook her head slowly, looking a little contrite.

"I'm sorry—I forgot you never met him." She smiled faintly. "A little protective, aren't you Tokio-san?"

"No she's not," Saitou immediately returned, voice holding warning, and Tokio rolled her eyes.

_Men are dumb_, she decided.

"You just wanted to know?" Tokio guessed, and Tomoe nodded again.

"We parted on…difficult terms…Kenshin and I," Tomoe said. She looked over at Tokio, gaze piercing. "Do you remember, two years before I married Akira, I was engaged?"

"Ye—oh," Tokio quietly replied, suddenly realizing what history Tomoe and Kenshin shared.

"It was a very unpleasant time in my life—first losing my father, then losing Kenshin," Tomoe murmured, eyes closed.

Beside her, Tokio noticed Saitou suddenly go rigid, and she looked up at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering what was wrong with him. His face was oddly tight, and he was watching Tomoe with narrowed, suspicious eyes. She nudged him, and when he glanced in her direction, she shrugged her shoulders, silently asking him what was wrong with him. He shook his head, his eyes plainly telling her it was nothing, which was perhaps a bigger lie than anything she'd uttered during her time at the hospital.

"Tokio-san?" Tomoe asked, and Tokio turned back to look at Tomoe just as the other woman opened her eyes.

"Yes?"

"Would you please do me a favor?"

"Uh…sure," Tokio said, thrown off and a little worried.

"Would you please…please tell Kenshin, that I forgive him? He'll know what I mean. Will you?"

"I…." Tokio stared at the other woman and for a moment, felt a strange sort of kinship. Sometimes she forgot that Tomoe, like any other woman, had secrets that she kept quietly hidden in the corners of her heart. Tokio smiled. "I'll tell him Tomoe-san. Don't worry."

Tomoe smiled faintly.

"Thank you," she murmured.

And then the moment was over, and Tomoe's face once more smoothed out into lines of calm confidence.

"I should be getting back to Akira," she said, bowing to first Tokio, then Saitou. "Thank you for your visit."

"We'll be back soon," Tokio promised, returning the bow.

They exchanged good-byes and Tokio and Saitou watched Tomoe walk back to her husband's room, each thinking of what they'd learned, though their respective takes on the information were wildly different.

When they were safely in the car, Tokio leaned her head back against the head rest of the passenger seat, closed her eyes and sighed wearily.

"I can't believe I just lied to my boss," she murmured.

"Lots of people lie to their bosses," Saitou remarked, starting up the car.

"I don't," Tokio said, opening her eyes and staring up at the roof. "And he's not just my boss, you know—he's family too."

"Lots of people lie to their families," was his reply as backed the car out of its parking space.

Tokio turned her head and looked over at him.

"You'd make an awful psychiatrist," she observed.

"Then it's a good thing I never had an interest in becoming one, isn't it?" he replied dryly, and she rolled her eyes, then watched his profile, wondering if she should ask what was on her mind.

The option of not asking was promptly taken away from her when he gruffly asked, not looking at her,

"What?"

She pursed her lips; she probably could have said "Nothing," but she doubted he'd let her get away with it, if the look on his face was any indication.

"Why'd you get so weird?"

"'Weird'?" he repeated, still not looking at her.

"Yeah, when Tomoe-san mentioned losing her father and then Himura-san?"

"No reason," he replied, and Tokio frowned at him.

"You're not even trying to lie," she chided.

He didn't reply, and Tokio sighed, then turned her head away and looked out her window, a little irritated by his silence (he'd _never_ have allowed her to get away with that kind of an answer), but sort of glad he wasn't pressing for details. Even if he'd all of a sudden closed himself off.

There was something going on, she was sure of it—there had to be, otherwise he wouldn't have reacted the way he had. Somehow, Yukishiro-san's death and Kenshin were connected. She sort of remembered that time, mostly because Akira had been devastated, and she'd spent a lot of time trying to cheer him up, poor guy. He'd been hopelessly in love with Tomoe from the age of ten, and Tokio had heard her cousin talk about the other woman ad nauseum for years. When Enishi had told her that the wedding was off, it had blindsided her.

"Well, yeah, because of your dad dying, right?" she'd asked the younger boy, perplexed.

"No, stupid," Enishi had snapped, looking so upset and frustrated that Tokio had refrained from whacking him for calling her stupid (though it took a lot of effort), "I mean permanently. Sis isn't getting married anymore. The wedding's _off_."

She'd been stunned; that news, on top of the news that Yukishiro-san had been _assassinated_—sweet, friendly Yukishiro-san, who used to tease Enishi about Tokio being his girlfriend and used to tease her about being a cradle-robber—had been a lot to take in. Not long after, the murderer had been apprehended, prosecuted and shuttled off to prison, but despite the commendable quickness with which it had been handled, it had still been a huge scandal—it wasn't every day, after all, that businessmen were brutally, even savagely, murdered.

But where did Kenshin fit in? And what did Saitou know about it? And just how exactly did he know about it…?

After a few moments, she gave up, feeling too drained to do the mental gymnastics this little puzzle required. It had been a very long day, and it still wasn't over. Oh, it hadn't been terrible, she'd had some success to be sure, but she'd had better days with more accomplishment.

Her gaze flickered over to Saitou, who was still doing a good impression of a mannequin.

_What is he hiding?_ she wondered, frowning. _And why does it give me such a bad_ _feeling?_

"Never mind," she murmured after a moment, slipping her hand over his where it rested on the gear shift, and turning back to look out the passenger window. _I'd rather_ _not know, right now._

There was a long pause, and then he slowly rubbed his thumb up and down her little finger, as it was the only finger he could reach. Tokio smiled, still looking out the window, and they drove back to the museum in a nice sort of quiet that she decided she really liked.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 15: What We've Got Here Is Failure To Communicate:_

"Do you listen when I talk to you, just out of curiosity? Because I'm almost positive that we've discussed the question of 'Saitou-san' before. Many, _many_ times." he dryly cut in, and she rolled her eyes.

---

"I'll give you a lap dance…."

There was a very long and significant pause. Then:

"No."

"You thought about it didn't you?"

"The answer is still no."

---

"Don't take his side!"

"It's not a matter of taking sides, damn it, it's a matter of common sense!"

---

"Are you at all acquainted with the concept of mercy, Aoshi?"

"Don't be cute, Himura."

"Just curious."

"HELP ME DAMN IT!"

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**Additional A/N:** So, I only just now realized something, and sat here thinking about it for like eight minutes or something, completely amazed. Can you believe that Chapters Two through this one only covered _one week_? Talk about drawing a story out, huh? 


	15. What We've Got Here Is Failure

**A/N:** Several of you expressed curiosity about Kenshin's past. Well, you're in luck, because you get some answers in this chapter! This one's a little more serious because of that, though. And there's a little conflict between our favorite chain-smoking Wolf and the object of his demented affections (hey, it can't all be "sex and sashimi," right? ; )), but don't worry, eh? Also, **Dragowolf**: she's definitely coming back, and she'll be around for a while, too.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

kushiage: according to Wikipedia (twitch), "kushi" means bamboo stick and "age" means fried, especially deep-fried in batter. Kushiage can be made with chicken, pork, seafood, and/or seasonal vegetables; they're skewered on bamboo sticks and deep-fried in vegetable oil. They can be served straight, or with sauce. It's a Japanese kabob. : ).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Fifteen: What We've Got Here Is Failure To Communicate_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Eight o'clock that evening found her sitting with Saitou on his couch in his apartment, using him as a pillow once again. They were watching another Kurosawa movie, though Tokio wasn't really paying attention; she'd seen every film Kurosawa Akira had ever made courtesy of her father and a former boyfriend who'd been another devotee, and she'd seen many of them enough that she could quote entire scenes if she really wanted to.

She sometimes did with her father, trying to see who could remember which scene better.

Her mind was still back at the museum, where she'd been assaulted by bad news when she'd stepped through the doors: Sae's sister Tae was pregnant and was expected to pop any day now, which wouldn't have been especially troubling for Tokio, except that Tae and her husband lived in Osaka and Sae was Tae's only family and it was Tae's first child and she was kinda sorta _scared to death_. Tokio had known all this already, though, as Sae had kindly put in for time off a full month in advance and Tokio had given it to her without a second thought. That, however, had been before the sky had begun falling, and when Sae hesitantly reminded Tokio of the vacation time she'd been awarded, Tokio had reluctantly honored the agreement, because Sae had never asked for time off ever and Tokio felt worse about going back on her promise than about not having Sae with her during this crisis.

She had then begun worrying about who was going to fill-in for Sae, since she'd forgotten about the agreement and hadn't put in for a temp. Aoshi had come to the rescue by offering up Misao, and Tokio had agreed, rather cautiously, despite Saitou's warnings that the "Weasel Girl" would make things much worse.

Then she was attacked by the assistants, who were all in an uproar because _someone_ (she knew it was Nakajima, the bastard) had apparently hinted that they were going to be working Mondays for the next month, at least, and they weren't going to be paid for it either. She'd already been planning on letting them have their usual break Monday, and then calling a staff meeting on Tuesday to ask them all to give up their next few Mondays off (and she'd been planning to ask Enishi about the feasibility of giving the assistants bonuses as compensation), but she was pretty sure that would start a riot, and she rashly promised them she wouldn't be calling them in tomorrow or next Monday, which had pacified them somewhat.

Nakajima, of course, was nowhere to be found.

Enishi and Kamatari had come back empty-handed once again, and not speaking to each other, and Tokio had had to spend precious time playing mediator while they "made up and became friends again," as Kamatari liked to put it, or in Enishi's words, "promised to tolerate each other for yet another miserable day of my life."

Anji had hesitantly come to her office to inform her that there seemed to be some kind of problem with the order he'd put in for his new tools, and Tokio had had to sort it out by herself without Sae to help, which had put her in a rotten mood. She hadn't accomplished much, and she'd be making a couple of irate phone calls tomorrow that she wasn't really looking forward to.

Saitou had come for her at seven, and found her face down on her desk, muttering to herself.

"Do I want to know?" he asked.

"No," she returned, voice muffled. "Trust me: the answer is a big, _huge_ no."

He'd dragged her out of her office and away from the museum, to a kushiage restaurant for dinner (much later, Tokio would realize it had been another sort-of date), and then they'd retired to his apartment. Tokio hadn't enjoyed her evening at all, worried as she was about everything she had to do tomorrow, and very worried about what she was going to do without Sae. She'd been working for Tokio since the day the latter had become Associate Director, and Tokio had quickly come to appreciate her secretary's cheery efficiency. Sae was a large part of the reason why Tokio herself was so efficient, and Tokio was suddenly very deeply sorry that she was such a freaking bleeding heart that she couldn't even deny her secretary the only time-off the woman had ever put in for in eight years.

And Enishi said she was a bitch, feh….

Saitou's sigh of resignation was all the warning she had: all of a sudden she was being held her up by her underarms, and he was watching her with a fed up expression on his face.

Tokio blinked.

"Huh?"

"What is wrong with you?" he asked wearily, obviously a little irritated.

"Nothing," she protested.

"Then why do you keep digging your chin into my sternum?"

She stared at him, eyes wide.

"Uh…I'm sorry?" she tried.

"Tokio," he said, tone warning.

"It's nothing," she insisted, rolling her eyes. "Could you put me down now?"

"Are you going to stop trying to crack my ribcage open with your chin?"

"I wasn't digging in that hard," she muttered.

"Feh," was his reply, though he did set her back down—on his lap.

"Saitou-san," she began.

"Do you listen when I talk to you, just out of curiosity? Because I'm almost positive that we've discussed the question of 'Saitou-san' before. Many _many_ times." he dryly cut in, and she rolled her eyes.

"Gimme a break," she said irritably. "I've got a lot on my mind."

"And that's why you were trying to crack my chest open." he deadpanned.

She sent him a flat look; he raised an eyebrow and met her gaze, and after moment, she rolled her eyes and sighed impatiently.

"Today sucked," she replied irritably.

"What happened to being optimistic?"

"It went down the tubes…with my career," Tokio muttered.

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"Feh—and Okita says I'm depressing," he said.

Tokio glared up at him; his expression told her he wasn't impressed.

"All right, movie time's over," he announced, using the remote to stop the DVD. He then grabbed her again and threw her over his shoulder, and she let out a yelp of surprise.

"Hajime! What the hell are you doing?" she indignantly demanded.

"Oh good, you're learning," he nonchalantly remarked as he went over to the sliding doors that opened onto the little balcony of his apartment.

"Put me down!" she hollered, kicking.

"Chiisai," he said in warning. "Behave—you're in no position to start acting like a brat."

"I'm hanging upside down!" she snapped back.

"With your ass in the air, making it much easier to spank you," was his reply, and she quieted down.

He stepped outside, shut the glass door, then set her down. She smoothed down her skirt, then sent him a withering look.

"Was that necessary?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, walking to the small table and one chair he had out there and sitting down, taking out his cigarettes and matches as he went.

"Did you have to drag me out here if you wanted to smoke? I could have watched the movie."

"You weren't watching shit," he calmly replied, a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth; he set the pack aside and took up the matches. "Besides, I'm not finished."

She watched him light the cigarette, shake the match out and toss it into the ash tray he had on the table.

"And just where am I supposed to sit?"

He smirked, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count."

"_Pervert_," she said emphatically, walking over to where he was sitting and hesitantly settling herself on his knee.

"You have no problem using me as a pillow, but using me as a chair is something else all together?" he asked, amused.

She sent him a sour look and opted not to reply, and he smirked.

"Now," he said, taking his cigarette from his mouth and thoughtfully blowing the smoke out the corner of his mouth so it didn't hit her. "I'm feeling a little ignored, Chiisai."

She raised an eyebrow.

"'Ignored'?" she repeated.

"Uh-huh," was his reply, complete with languid nod. "I expect to have your undivided attention when you're with me."

Her expression turned from cool appraisal to arch resentment.

"Is that right?" she asked, voice clipped. "Any other demands, _Master_?"

"Nice touch. Unnecessary, but nice all the same," he informed her.

"I thought it fit you, given how you're acting."

"That's an unfair assessment," he chided mildly. "I doubt you'd feel the same way if I let my attention wander when I was with you."

"Not likely," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "You're too much of a letch."

His smirk widened.

"Hm—ain't that the truth," he drawled, patting her hip with his free hand, and she blushed faintly and rolled her eyes.

"So, in an effort to regain your attention," he continued, "we're going to have a little discussion, and then you're going to stop being so neurotic. Deal?"

"I'm not being neurotic," she muttered.

"Deal?" he repeated, ignoring her.

"I don't want to talk about it," Tokio said.

"I'm not going to ask you again, Tokio," Saitou said, and while his voice didn't change, exactly, she could tell he was getting impatient with her.

Yeah? Well that was just _too damn bad_.

"I said I didn't want to talk about it," she replied, jaw tightening.

"Well tough shit," he snapped, and it was clear to the negotiation was over. "Now stop being stubborn."

"I don't feel like talking to you about it!" she snapped back.

"Well I don't feel like being ignored for the rest of the time you're here! So we're either going to talk about it or you're going to magically start ignoring whatever the hell's bothering you! Those are your only options, so pick one!"

She wasn't in the mood for a fight with him, not after today, not when he was supposed to be her distraction. But even as she acquiesced, she seethed inside—who the hell did he think he was to be giving her orders about what she was going to do and when?

"Fine," she growled.

He inclined his head in acknowledgment, then put his cigarette between his lips.

"Now what exactly about today 'sucked,' as you so eloquently put it?" he asked.

"Everything," she replied, voice cool and clipped.

"Really? You seemed fine after we met with Hiko."

"Fine, that was okay," she relented. "But it was down hill from there."

"The visit with Kiyosato wasn't that bad." Saitou countered.

"I lied to my boss, stupid," Tokio snapped. "He's going to flip out when he finds out."

Saitou took a moment to send her a warning look for the "stupid" comment before replying:

"Why would Kiyosato find out? I doubt Yukishiro's going to rat you out—it's his ass too if Kiyosato finds out."

"No, Tomoe-san," Tokio corrected. "She's all suspicious of us, and the second she can leave Akira-kun's side, she's going to come to the museum and she's going to find out."

"That's not going to be for at least a month," Saitou said incredulously; he recalled that Enishi had called her a "paranoid psycho" a day or so back, and thought the description suddenly very apt.

"Yeah, and all my problems aren't going to be magically resolved by then," Tokio said bitterly, all her frustration at him and the problems at the museum building. "I have no cases, Kamatari seems intent on ignoring the budget, Nakajima is taking great pains to be more of an ass than usual and inciting riots with my assistants, the board is still pissed, we might not be able to keep the sakabatou, Wu and the Hirumas are still running around somewhere—"

"Stop," Saitou said, leaning over to crush out his cigarette in the ash tray. He then laid a hand on her knee. "Wu and the Hirumas are my problem, Chiisai, not yours. As to Honjou and the assistants, I can take care of them too if you want."

"You can't shoot all my assistants," she said in exasperation.

"I won't have to," he replied. "One or two should suffice."

"Well you aren't shooting Kamatari," Tokio replied. "He can't be replaced."

Saitou smirked.

"Does that mean I can shoot the assistants?"

"You're not shooting anyone you psychopath."

He sighed in mock resignation.

"Spoilsport."

Tokio shook her head and sighed.

"You need a shrink, you know that?" she said.

He shrugged.

"It's been suggested a few times prior to now," he admitted nonchalantly.

"Ever think maybe there's a reason?"

"No."

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Well at least you're happy, I guess."

"Can't complain." He raised an eyebrow and sent her a lazy look. "But we're not done discussing you, my pet."

She raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything about the nickname.

"Well fine, what else?" she asked, a little resentfully; damn it, hadn't that list been enough?

"I haven't heard anything about you lacking money, so I'm assuming you're all right on that front," he said.

Tokio frowned.

"Not really," she admitted, and he raised an eyebrow.

"You're not?"

She shook her head.

"Enishi won't give me the details, but I'm pretty sure that the final total was a lot higher than he was expecting—"

"Wait wait, stop," Saitou holding up a hand. "When you presented the new damage report to the board, the final amount was three million—"

"3.6 million," she corrected.

"Same difference," he impatiently replied, annoyed at being interrupted. "Are you telling me that number was wrong?"

"Yes," Tokio affirmed, and he sent her a considering look.

"By how much?" he asked finally.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "But considering how weird he gets whenever I ask him about it, at least by a million, if not two or more."

"Oh hells," he muttered, and Tokio nodded.

"Yeah, that about sums it up."

Saitou looked thoughtful, then seemed to make a decision and nodded.

"You need a drink," he announced, and Tokio raised an eyebrow, lips pursed—huh. She hadn't been expecting that.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she said.

"I said _a_ drink, not clean me out," he dryly replied. "I've got my shit days too, you know."

He set her down and got up and went in, then returned with two beers, and she was returned to his lap, much to her chagrin and his amusement. They were quiet a long time, and then Tokio, who had finally given in (since it appeared her interrogation was over) and made herself comfortable by leaning against him and laying her head against his shoulder, murmured,

"Why'd you get weird when Tomoe-san talked about her father and Himura-san?"

"Christ," he muttered, "not this again."

"How come?"

"I thought you didn't care."

"And I thought you were supposed to be taking my mind off work."

He made a face she didn't see.

"How is talking about your boss' wife going to take your mind off work?"

"It's not work-related. Now answer or I'll pinch you."

"I'll pinch you back," he warned.

"I have nails," she replied.

"I'll bruise."

"I hate you."

"I hate you too."

"Aw come on!" she whined.

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"I'll give you a lap dance…."

There was a very long and significant pause. Then:

"No."

"You thought about it didn't you?"

"The answer is still no."

She abruptly sat up and glared at him.

"So when I don't want to talk about stuff it doesn't matter and I have to anyway, but when you don't want to you don't have to?" she demanded, poking him in the chest very hard with her index finger.

"Stop poking me," he ordered.

She gave him one last really hard jab that made him wince before complying.

"Chauvinist pig," she muttered.

"I'm a chauvinist pig because I won't talk about something that's none of your business?" he asked, rubbing the spot she'd abused and frowning accusingly at her.

She rolled her eyes.

"Well if it's none of my business then what's so special about you that it's your business?" she shot back mockingly, and he sent her an annoyed look.

"It's none of my business either, damn it," he snapped. "Now drop it."

"Don't tell me what to do!" she snapped back, not liking his tone at all.

"Well act like you have some sense then!"

She abruptly got up, slamming her beer bottle on the table.

"Got to hell," she said. "I'm leaving."

He blinked, thrown off for a second, then slammed his own bottle on the table and got up and followed her into his apartment.

She already had her purse and jacket in hand and was stepping into her heels by the door, hand on the doorknob, when he found her.

"Oi," he said, incredulous; oh man, she'd been serious….

"Good-night," she spat, throwing the door open and walking out. The door slammed shut behind her, and he watched it for a moment, then decided to hell with her anyway and returned outside, annoyed with her.

"Crazy wench," he muttered, lighting a new cigarette.

The longer he sat and glared at the glowing tip of his cigarette, the angrier he got with her. She'd been unreasonable, damn it. She'd acted like a brat. And just because he'd been aware of that personality defect for a while now didn't mean he was willing to condone it. She was a twenty-seven-year-old woman, not a three-year-old girl, and temper tantrums at her age were ridiculous.

Besides, he really didn't see what her problem was. He had taken her home with him because he'd assumed that she wanted to get away from work, and he was usually pretty good at that. But she'd been tense all through dinner, a subtle sort of tension that he'd noticed and been puzzled by. Once he'd realized she was still "working," he'd decided to be a little more insistent that she leave the office for the day, because what he'd said was true: when he was with her he expected her full and undivided attention. So if _anyone_ had a right to be pissed off, it was _him_; he'd been ignored for a couple of hours, then yelled at when he'd tried to get her into a better, more receptive mood. Saitou didn't do favors for just anyone, and when he did lower himself, it was something of an event; Okita claimed it should be designated a national holiday when it happened for its rarity. And even though he really couldn't have cared less about the museum's day-to-day business, he had listened to her complain about it because that was what was gnawing at her and taking her attention away from him, and as soon as that was sorted out and dealt with, he'd have her attention again.

So much for that _brilliant_ idea.

His scowl darkened and he slumped down further in his chair, snatching his beer off the table.

"On top of being a brat, she's an ungrateful one," he muttered around his cigarette. "Spanking her keeps looking like a better way of going about things."

He didn't know exactly how to go about this, though. No other woman he'd ever been involved with had been as frustratingly obstinate as Tokio; his ex-wife had been a fairly even tempered woman who believed arguments were best resolved behind closed doors, and because he was of the same opinion, they'd never said a cross word in public.

Except for being jealous and suspicious and paranoid to the point of insanity, Yaso'd been pretty okay.

Aioi had not been an adherent to that "closed-door" policy (Saitou hated to admit that Okita had been right about Aioi, but, well…he'd been right), but they'd been in high school at the time, so Saitou really hadn't paid attention to it, though it had annoyed him considerably; he'd started smoking because of her, because it was less expensive than becoming a drunk, though there had been moments (_far_ too many, as far as he was concerned) when exchanging one vice for the other had looked damn fine.

Natsu had been terrified of disagreeing with him over anything (the divorce of her parents had had rather an adverse effect on her), and the few times she had inadvertently disagreed with him over something as earth-shattering as extra butter on the popcorn when they went to a movie, she'd get hysterical and embarrass the hell out of him by begging his forgiveness. She'd thrown herself down at his feet, loudly begging his forgiveness, when he'd finally had enough and ended the relationship, and when that hadn't worked, she'd attached herself to his leg and refused to let go. And because he didn't want to kick her off and possibly hurt her in the process, he'd had to try and talk her into letting go of him for over an hour before she had.

Hitomi hadn't been as overtly insane as either Natsu or Aioi. She'd been the other, more dangerous kind of insane (Yaso's kind of insane), the one that made itself known once you were in too deep. To this day, Saitou was pretty sure that if she had been his first girlfriend, he probably would have either become celibate or gay. The worst part was that there had been little signs that he hadn't quite picked up on, things he'd sort of noticed but hadn't really _seen_. If he'd paid even just a smidge more attention, he would have seen it coming and run very fast in the other direction. She'd also had the worst case of obsessive-compulsive disorder he'd ever seen up until he started working for the government and met his coworkers (and, in an ironic little twist of Fate, he'd developed a much milder form of it than she'd had); how she'd managed to hide it from him for five months was still a mystery to him. Then again, he hadn't really been paying close attention either….

Ayame had been less crazy than her successors, but still nowhere near normal, whatever that was. Fuyu was more crazy than Ayame, less crazy than Hitomi. And the very first girlfriend, Kagami, had held the dubious honor of looniest girlfriend up until Saitou had become involved with Aioi, because she'd been convinced at thirteen that she was going to marry him. She'd even gone so far as to discuss this possibility with her parents (who had been in _agreement_), and then try to set a date with his parents, who had stared at the other couple as if they'd lost their minds. When Saitou found out about the visit, he'd promptly called Kagami up and informed her that the relationship was done, and she could forget about the fucking wedding too, 'cause it wasn't gonna happen. She hadn't taken it too well, and for several months afterwards, she'd called the house and left some truly creepy messages on the machine, and she'd hounded his next girlfriend (the more stable-but-still-unstable Fuyu) for a good solid month before he'd approached her in the hallway at school and asked her to stop, which she had. Hounding Fuyu, anyway. The phone calls didn't, and neither did the long, rambling and often times totally psychotic letters she shoved into his locker. Thankfully, they'd parted ways in high school since she'd moved to another neighborhood, but he didn't truly ever shake himself of her until he'd moved out of his parent's house. His parents had generously decided not to give her his new phone number or address, though she still sporadically called the house. With the advent of caller i.d., his father had begun having fun with her and answering the phone with a new accent every time (though if he was particularly pleased with or fond of one, he'd recycle it; he was very proud of his "Korean-man-living-in-Japan-for-twenty-years-but-still-not-so-good-with-the-language" one), which ensured that the calls became more and more sporadic.

"That fucking bastard," he muttered, referring to Okita. "He was right."

Or he was almost right—Yaso had been the only pretty normal crazy woman he'd ever been involved with. Though to be honest, Tokio was more put together than Yaso.

In the end, Saitou consumed both his own beer and Tokio's and smoked three more cigarettes before he went in, still pissed that she'd blown him off.

But he was damned if he was going to give in first; she'd been the brat—_she'd_ be the one to apologize.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Kamatari strolled into the museum, his attaché case in one hand and a lemon poppy seed muffin in the other.

He hadn't planned on coming in today, but he still had a lot to do with the new design, so he'd decided to work at the office for a couple hours, where it was quiet and he wouldn't be disturbed.

Seeing an uber-pissed Tokio riffling through the papers on her secretary's desk quickly disabused him of that fantasy.

"What happened?" he asked in lieu of "Good morning", pausing and watching her warily.

"Nothing," Tokio snapped, not looking up at him. "I'm fine."

"Uh-huh," Kamatari replied neutrally. "Kitten, come into my office, huh? I have to talk to you."

"I'm busy," she returned.

"It won't take long," Kamatari assured. "It's about the design budget."

"Wait 'til Enishi gets here and talk to him about it," was the annoyed reply. "I'm busy."

Kamatari frowned and inwardly sighed; gods, he really hated reducing himself to whining to get his way, but he'd learned a long time ago that nothing got Tokio into a conciliatory mood faster than if he turned into a child and started stamping his foot, so to speak.

_The crap I do for my kitten_, he thought wearily.

"You don't have to be so snippy about it," Kamatari said, pouting.

"I don't have time for your crap Kamatari!" Tokio shouted, and Kamatari was a little offended by the accusation.

"Well fine," he said stiffly. "Forget it then."

If whiny Kamatari didn't work, hurt Kamatari always did the trick.

He turned and went to his office, and he heard her sigh in frustration, then follow along in his wake.

He took his time settling into his chair and basically ignoring her as payback for her comment, even though he knew she hadn't really meant it (she _better_ not have, anyway…), and finally, he glanced up and raised an eyebrow in surprise, as if he hadn't known she was standing there the whole time.

"Yes?" he coolly inquired, and Tokio sighed and rolled her eyes.

"You said you wanted to talk to me," she muttered.

"And you said to wait for Enishi-chan."

"Oh since when do you listen to what I say?" she irritably demanded, then let out an annoyed huff of a breath that disturbed her bangs and scrubbed her hands over her face. "I _hate_ Monday."

Kamatari pursed his lips.

"What's wrong kitten?" he asked kindly, and she sighed, then plopped down into the chair in front of his desk.

"He's such a jerk!" she complained.

"Who? Enishi?"

"I _wish_ he was my problem," Tokio muttered, rolling her eyes. "One good kick and the problem would be solved."

"Ah—"I-will-destroy-you" Eyes," Kamatari said, understanding now. "What happened?"

"He's a jerk," Tokio muttered crossly.

"Yeah, I got that," Kamatari replied. "But what'd he do?"

"He knows something about Tomoe-san," Tokio said, "and he won't tell me."

"What about Tomoe-san?" Kamatari asked, curious.

"About the first man she was engaged to. He knows something about why they never got married, I can tell. He got weird yesterday when she alluded to the whole thing—by the way, Akira-kun said thank you."

Kamatari waved the thank you off with an impatient nod.

"What'd she say?"

"Well one of the officers investigating the break-in is the ex-fiancé, and she found out. She gave me a message for him."

"Oh how weird!" Kamatari said, sitting back in his chair, face thoughtful. "Who'd a thought, huh?"

"Yeah," Tokio said absently, frowning. "It has something to do with Tomoe-san's father."

Kamatari raised an eyebrow.

"You think?" he asked, voice quiet.

"I know," Tokio said emphatically. "I can tell. Saitou-san was fine until Tomoe-san mentioned her father dying."

They were quiet for a long time, and then Kamatari whispered,

"You think the ex-fiancé might've been involved in Yukishiro-san's death?"

Tokio sent him a troubled look. She pictured Kenshin, with his kind smile and soft eyes and sweet disposition.

"No," she decided. "That's not it. Himura-san wouldn't have been involved in something so sordid."

"How do you know?" Kamatari prodded.

"You wouldn't think that if you talked to him," Tokio insisted. "He's too nice."

Kamatari didn't look convinced.

"You just know him from him working with "I-will-destroy-you" Eyes, Tokio-chan. What you see is hardly ever what you get."

Tokio shrugged a little uneasily.

"True," she admitted, then frowned. "Very true."

"So "I-will-destroy-you" Eyes knows something and didn't tell you," Kamatari prompted.

"Right," Tokio said, disgruntled. "So I got pissed off and left."

"You walked out on him during dinner?"

"No, we'd already eaten dinner," she said. "We were at his apartment."

"You guys have this argument before or after you had sex?" Kamatari asked, and Tokio sent him a chilling look that had him regretting having asked. He coughed. "Sorry," he murmured weakly, unable to meet her gaze.

"Uh-huh," was her cool reply.

There passed a moment of heavy silence, and then Kamatari cleared his throat again.

"So," he said lamely. "You left."

"Uh-huh."

Another pause.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Kamatari said, frowning. "You _left_? Because he wouldn't tell you what he knew about Tomoe-san?"

Apparently, she knew where he was going with this, because she looked very uncomfortable all of a sudden, as if she hadn't realized exactly how her reaction sounded until right this moment.

"Yes," she admitted hesitantly.

Kamatari stared at her, incredulous.

"Are you on drugs?" he demanded finally. "What the hell kind of reaction is that, Tokio?"

"Don't take his side!"

"It's not a matter of taking sides, damn it, it's a matter of common sense!" Kamatari sent her a disgusted look. "I can't believe you acted like such a brat!"

"He started it!" Tokio snapped, not liking the comparison because it fit too well. "He made me tell him stuff I didn't feel like telling him, and then he refused to tell me stuff I wanted to know!"

"Like what stuff?" Kamatari demanded.

"Museum stuff," she said, scrubbing her hands over her face again. "I don't want to talk about museum stuff when I'm with him, damn it!"

"Well why'd he bring it up?"

"Because I was distracted," she admitted. "I thought I was doing an okay job of hiding it, but he noticed."

Kamatari pursed his lips. He'd known Tokio a long time, and she dealt with problems in unique ways. The oddest quirk was her habit of not discussing the things that were bothering her. She preferred to sit on them and come up with her own solutions, at least with work-related issues. Personal issues she was more open to asking for someone else's input (it was usually his).

He'd asked her why once, and she said that talking about what was bothering her only made her more anxious, because she almost always remembered something that compounded her woes midway through talking about them. Personally, Kamatari thought that was a screwy way of doing things, but it worked for her, and in the end, that was all that mattered. He decided he was going to have to talk to Saitou about this soon and advise the other man to never try to coax Tokio into talking shop ever again if the guy was still interested in a relationship after last night—he was almost one-hundred percent sure that she hadn't bothered to explain her weirdo policy to the poor guy before jumping down his throat.

He looked Tokio over and decided to take pity on her. The poor thing was tired and she'd been plagued with problems the whole week without catching a break, and it showed; she was pale and there were smudges under her eyes. And she hadn't bothered to dress up today: she was in jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers, her hair in a high ponytail and face free of make up, which was the only reason he could see the smudges. That in and of itself was proof enough that she was feeling thin—Tokio always made the effort to look professional, even when they weren't officially open for business.

"So now what?" Kamatari asked, voice kind.

Tokio sighed.

"I don't know," she groaned, flopping back into her chair and pouting, face miserable. She suddenly narrowed her eyes and glared at his desk. "But I'm not giving in first—he was the jerk, _he'll_ be the one to apologize."

Kamatari raised an eyebrow.

"I don't see that happening," he said dubiously. "Not in this universe, anyway."

"I'm not giving in," Tokio said, voice brooking no argument, and Kamatari held up his hands in a placating "Easy—_easy_" fashion.

"I wasn't suggesting that you do," he said. "But you two need to find a way to compromise. Neither one of you is the type to back down, and that can cause serious problems, kitten, not the least of which is that neither of you knows when to quit when you should."

Tokio regarded him suspiciously.

"'Compromise'?" she asked.

"Agree to disagree," Kamatari suggested. "Because I don't see you ever admitting you were wrong, and "I-will-destroy-you" Eyes doesn't look like he'd do it either."

"If he did first I might," Tokio muttered, and Kamatari frowned.

"What planet are _you_ on?" he asked dryly. "Super Crazy No-Way World?"

"Oh shut up," she said irritably.

"Oi, a little more respect, if you please—I'm trying to help you get laid," Kamatari replied with a self-important sniff.

"Would you stop with that?" Tokio snapped, then sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Sex is the last thing on my mind right now, Kamatari."

Kamatari rolled his eyes but didn't say anything.

"What about the budget?" she asked finally, sounding weary.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"He's in a bad fuckin' mood today," Okita said when he walked into the men's room.

Kenshin looked up from washing his hands and met Okita's gaze in the mirror.

"You noticed, huh?" he replied, and Okita snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Not like he's hidin' it or nothin'," he muttered. "It really sucks when he's like this. The last time he was this bad was when his brother was livin' with him."

Kenshin winced, then sighed and shut off the faucet.

"And Aoshi?" Kenshin asked, shaking some of the water off his hands.

"That kid's amazing," Okita admitted, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. "He's sittin' right at his desk next to Hajime and he doesn't even twitch when Hajime gets belligerent."

Kenshin smiled faintly and went over to the paper towel dispenser.

"Aoshi's very good at tuning people out—how do you think he's managed to stick it out with Misao-dono for so long?"

"I just thought he knew a way of shutting her up," Okita admitted. He looked thoughtful. "Think I should start mediating?"

"Whatever works for you," Kenshin replied noncommittally, and Okita sighed and shook his head.

"Some help you are," he muttered, reaching into his pocket and pulling out one of the butterscotch candies Tokio had given him—he'd been greedily hoarding them like a little kid since receiving them.

Kenshin held his peace and dried his hands, then tossed the paper towel into the garbage and began for the door.

"You're going back out there?" Okita asked, incredulous, pausing in unwrapping the candy. "You're actually gonna sit there with the Wolf of Bunkyo Ward when he's got rabies?"

"This one has work to do," Kenshin replied. He raised an eyebrow. "Surely you aren't going to hide in here all day, Okita?"

"You're damn right I am," was the emphatic response. "I'm gonna lock myself in one of the stalls, too, just in case he comes in here."

Kenshin rolled his eyes and shook his head, then left the men's room.

As was his custom, he'd arrived early to the station and about five minutes after he'd settled himself down at his desk, Saitou had arrived, thoroughly irate and just itching for a fight. Kenshin was wise enough not to let his old adversary lure him into a brawl (sadly, he was unable to say that this was usually the case; Saitou had a frightening talent for pushing his buttons), which had the unfortunate side effect of pissing Saitou off worse. If the man's mood had been just a smidgen less, well, murderous, Kenshin might have suggested he goad someone (preferably someone who was _not_ Kenshin) into an impromptu sparring match out in the yard, which was perfectly acceptable, especially in a station as packed with old government operatives who all hated each other to varying degrees as theirs was. But as he was presently, Kenshin knew inviting Saitou to pick a fight was in actuality asking for someone to die in an obscenely inhumane fashion.

So they'd have to endure the Wolf's little bout of rabies until it subsided.

Kenshin decided he was going to visit a temple on his lunch break and pray this bout subsided quickly—sometimes, the gods needed a gentle little nudge to get things done….

"Your phone's been going off for a full damn minute now!" Saitou snapped at Kenshin when the redhead reached their desks. "Answer it already!"

Kenshin decided not replying was the best avenue, because responding to Saitou at all at this point was a bad idea, so he just walked to his desk, sat down and picked up his phone.

"Himura," he said.

"Oh good, you _are_ there," came Tokio's voice, sounding relieved. "I was worried you might be off today."

"Oro?" Kenshin asked, surprised.

At her end, Tokio chuckled.

"I'm sorry Himura-san, that was rude of me. Good morning."

"Good morning," he stupidly replied. A pause. "Are you sure you called the right extension?"

"Yes," she said, and he heard the smile in her voice. "This won't take too much of your time, Himura-san—I realize you're busy, but I'm not sure when you're going to be back at the museum, and it's important I talk to you soon."

Kenshin's gaze went to Saitou, who was scowling and ignoring him. He decided he wasn't going to call Tokio by her name. He'd already noted the other man became rather overtly hostile whenever Tokio had any sort of contact with him, and he knew instinctively that saying anything that sounded remotely like "Tokio" on this particular day could start something that would end very badly.

"Ehm…all right, I suppose," he said finally, gaze going to his paper-littered desk top. "If it's important."

Saitou, meanwhile, was glaring down at the highly detailed breakdown of the museum's security system that Aoshi had given him this morning. He'd been attempting to read it for some time now, but his current humor was making that an exercise in futility, which was only fueling his mood.

He'd slept okay last night (like every former operative, Saitou defined "a good night's sleep" as a night where he was able to sleep the whole way through without reliving an unpleasant episode from his "glory days") and he hadn't been particularly bothered this morning…until he'd walked by the museum just as Tokio was walking in, because the gods hated him like that. She'd looked right at him, seen who it was and had the gall to pointedly look away and ignore him, continuing on her way as if she hadn't seen him at all.

Oh. Hell. No.

He walked halfway up the stairs before it occurred to him that it was very stupid and petty to get insulted because she'd decided to be very stupid and petty by ignoring him. He wasn't used to being ignored, however, unless he _wanted_ to be ignored, and he'd stood on the stairs for a second, torn between Reason and the irrational urge to make her acknowledge him before Reason had won and he'd whipped around and stalked down the stairs and continued on his way to work.

Only now his pride was raising hell that he'd let her ignore him so blatantly and rudely.

Stupid pride….

The ringing of his own phone made him abandon trying to glare Aoshi's report into bursting into flames. He reached over, snatched it out of the cradle and barked,

"What!"

"How rude," a vaguely familiar voice observed after a short pause.

"Who is this?" he demanded, irritated.

"Honjou Kamatari," came the reply. "We've met once or twice. I'd ask how you were, but as you don't seem very happy, it's rather useless to ask, isn't it?"

"What do you want?" Saitou asked through gritted teeth.

"Why to offer a little advice on how to keep my kitten happy," Kamatari replied, sounding amused. "She's in quite a snit. You sound like you're in quite a snit yourself."

"I don't have time for this shit," Saitou said impatiently.

"Heh—if you ever expect to get in her good graces ever again, you better find some," Kamatari said gleefully, obviously enjoying this immensely. "Otherwise, get used to "The Big Chill" and other highly potent forms of feminine punishment."

Saitou glared at his ash tray and wondered if it was possible yet to reach through a telephone and strangle the person on the other end. He decided he was going to have to look into that, because it was useful information he could use, unlike most technological advances.

"…What've you got?" he growled finally.

"Tomoe-san found out you're part of the investigation team," Tokio told Kenshin, voice quiet. "I think it was the news report the day of the bomb threat."

Kenshin closed his eyes and sighed; well, he hadn't been fool enough to think he'd be able to stay off Tomoe's radar forever….

"And?" he prompted when she didn't go on.

"She asked me to tell you…she forgave you."

Kenshin sat rigid in his seat, stunned.

"…Himura-san?"

"Ye…yes, this one is still here," Kenshin said. He swallowed dryly. "To—" He caught himself before he started a riot. "D…did she say about what?"

"No," Tokio replied slowly. "She said you'd understand. Is something wrong?"

"No," Kenshin said, then cleared his throat. "No," he repeated, voice stronger now, "nothing. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Tokio returned, but there was an odd note to her voice, as if there was something she wasn't saying.

"Is there something else?" Kenshin asked, careful to keep the dread out of his voice.

"I…well…can I ask you something? It's sort of…it's none of my business, really, and I probably shouldn't even be asking you this—I _know_ I shouldn't be asking you this—but I was wondering…you and Tomoe-san were supposed to get married once, right?"

"Yes," Kenshin said slowly.

"But you didn't, and it was around the time her father was…I was just wondering…I…Himura-san, was…did something…happen…between you and Yukishiro-san?"

Kenshin was quiet for a very long time, contemplating his desk top and wondering how to answer such a loaded question in a way that wasn't outright lying but didn't jeopardize his career either.

_Seems like the past always catches up with you_, he thought absently.

"Yes," he said finally. "You might say that."

There was a long pause on Tokio's end, and Kenshin heard her swallow.

"Did…were you…." Another long pause, and then she drew in a deep breath. "You know what? Never mind," she said finally, voice soft. "I think it's better I don't know."

"I agree," he said, voice quiet. "It's much better for all involved that the past stays in the past."

"I'm sorry for asking," she said. "I let my own morbid sense of curiosity talk me into doing it. I hope I haven't…I'm sorry if my questions brought back unpleasant memories for you, Himura-san."

Kenshin smiled ruefully.

"That's all right," he said. "Those memories are never very far away, unfortunately. Questions from others aren't necessary to bring them back." He hesitated, frowning. "Did Tomoe…?"

"Yes?" she prompted when he didn't continue.

Kenshin wet his dry lips and stared down at his desk top without really seeing it, not exactly sure how he wanted to ask this question. In the end, he decided not to ask, because there wasn't really anything left _to_ ask; obviously, Tomoe was referring to his calling off the wedding with nothing to offer but profuse apologies and deep regrets—there was nothing else she could have been forgiving him for.

"Nothing," he said finally, quietly. "It's nothing."

She was quiet for a moment, and then she coughed faintly.

"Right," she said, affecting a cheerful tone. "Well, I just wanted to tell you what Tomoe-san had said, since like I said, I didn't know when I'd see you again."

He shook off his sort of stupor, cleared his throat and tried to clear his head.

"This one appreciates your effort," he said, smiling faintly.

"Come by the museum some time," Tokio said. "We'll give you a discount."

Kenshin chuckled.

"Enishi would probably object to my presence," he began.

"Feh—as if I cared what that baby objects to," Tokio said, sneer in her voice, and Kenshin laughed lowly.

"Thank you," he said sincerely.

"You're welcome," she replied, just as sincere. "Please take me up on my offer Himura-san. I mean it."

"Yes, of course," he promised.

"Good," she said approvingly. She sighed. "Well, I have to get back to museum business, and I'm sure I've taken you away from your own business for long enough. Have a good day Himura-san."

"Thank you—you too," Kenshin said, and then they offered each other their good-byes and hung up.

Kenshin sat back in his chair and let out a long, slow breath.

He had never imagined that Tokio would know so much about his involvement with Tomoe, or that she'd connect Tomoe's father's death to him. That death, more than the others he'd facilitated during his short stint as a government operative, haunted him. Because it was a horrible mistake that should have ended his career—to say nothing of his life—but it hadn't. Instead, the government had found a scapegoat and dumped the blame onto him, and dispassionately told Kenshin to go back to work.

Like it never even happened.

Shocked didn't even begin to cover what he'd felt.

He'd confided in Okita, only because he knew the man would understand what he was feeling better than anyone else in the department. Okita wasn't a real, true field operative, like Kenshin or Saitou. He'd rarely had to actually leave their headquarters for his assignments, at least towards the end; in the beginning, when the department had still been small and constantly strapped for cash and still scoping recruits, they'd all had to double up and perform tasks that they weren't quite so expert in as their primary one. Or at least, that was the rule, until Okita had proved to be as efficient at dispatching targets as Kenshin and Saitou and Jin'e, and with just as much lack of emotion. There had even been talk of placing Okita in an area where this unique talent would prove more useful, but Okita had adamantly refused, saying he was content enough to hack into whatever systems the government wanted him to, and Saitou and a few other friends of his in the department had backed Okita's decision up. Okita had never been quite as tender-hearted as Kenshin, but the man was an empathetic soul, and Kenshin knew he'd listen.

He hadn't been as shocked as Kenshin. Or shocked at all, really—he'd been surprisingly (at least to Kenshin) unsurprised.

"We're doing some really illegal stuff here, Himura," he'd said mildly, leaning back in the computer chair Kenshin had found him in when he'd walked, still shell-shocked, into the dingy little hole that Okita wryly called his hovel away from home. "What did you expect they were going to do, publicly denounce you?"

"I don't know what I thought they'd do," Kenshin had admitted, frowning down at his hands. "But I didn't expect an innocent man to be accused of Yukishiro-san's…."

He couldn't bring himself to call it what it was, and he refused to think of Tomoe—oh gods, Tomoe….

"Oi, Himura, don't go doin' somethin' stupid like tellin' your girlfriend what really happened to her old man," Okita warned, face serious. He leaned forward. "Because if you do, there's worse things you'll have to worry about than your chick hating your guts."

Kenshin was of the opinion that Okita was wrong—nothing was worse than the look on Tomoe's face the day he called off their wedding. He'd been avoiding her calls and staying away from her house, unable to play hypocrite and comfort her when he was the inadvertent cause of her pain. It took a man with ice in his veins to do that kind of thing, and Kenshin wasn't that man.

And he knew better than to completely ruin his life by telling Tomoe what had really happened the night her father had died; the government would not be willing to clean up after him a second time, he knew. So he'd renounced his claims to Tomoe and walked away and worked in the department for another eleven months before the government, with no notice whatsoever, pulled the plug on the project and shuffled all its former operatives into the criminal investigations department of the Bunkyo Ward precinct, under the leadership of Hijikata Toshizou, vice commander of the now defunct department and thus more than qualified to keep the former operatives in line.

They'd all had some counseling too, not that it had mattered; more than once, Kenshin, Okita and Saitou had observed that the psychiatric treatment had a sort of tacked-on, afterthought feel to it, as if it had occurred to the powers that be that the men were human only after the fact. It hadn't helped, not really; they went through the motions, but the time when it would have done them all good was long past, and they'd had too much time to throw up their own poor defenses, their own sad coping mechanisms, and were now too firmly entrenched, dependent, in them. The shrinks said it was never too late—Kenshin, Okita and Saitou knew the truth, however. And the truth was, it didn't matter at this point.

Kenshin sighed wearily and laid his forehead against his desk.

_It's over_, he said to himself. _It's been over for some time now. Gotta move_ _along,_ _gotta keep looking forward._

"Go to hell!" Saitou bellowed rather suddenly, and Kenshin jerked, startled, and sat up.

There was a vein throbbing in Saitou's forehead—_Oh that **can't** be good_, Kenshin thought with a wince—and he was pissed. Royally, and absolutely.

Aoshi, for his part, still didn't look very concerned, and Kenshin took a moment to both wonder at the younger man's impassiveness and admire his courage before turning his attention back to Saitou, who was now calling the person he was speaking to some very unflattering names and making various threats against that person's person, all of which were gruesome in nature and all of which he was perfectly capable of, especially given his current humor.

Because the Wolf as he usually was was already pretty bad, but the Wolf with rabies was horrid.

"—and if you ever call me again I'll rip out your fucking spine and _strangle_ you with it!" Saitou roared, then slammed his phone down into the cradle with an ominous CRACK that made Kenshin grimace.

The redhead sighed.

"That's the eighth phone this year," he said wearily. "You should learn not to slam the phones down so hard—"

"Don't fuck with me," Saitou snapped, ripping a cigarette out of his pack. "Not unless you want to start something."

Kenshin sighed again, but held his peace. Instead, he reached over and grabbed a request form and began filling it out. Aoshi reached over and slid it away from Kenshin's pen.

"I'll fill it out—there were complaints about your chicken scratch last time we had to request a new phone, if you'll recall."

Kenshin sent him a flat look, but didn't deny it; he really did have the worst penmanship of the lot.

_No respect_, he thought resignedly. _No respect at all._

"Where's Okita?" Saitou demanded after long, tense minutes of furiously puffing on his cigarette.

"He mentioned using the men's room," Aoshi said idly as he neatly filled out the request form.

Saitou muttered under his breath, grabbed another cigarette and lit it with the one he was smoking, then rubbed the old one out in his overflowing ash tray, stuck the new one between thin, frowning lips, and rose and stalked off to find his missing officer. Kenshin watched him go and prayed Okita would be able to jump out the restroom window before Saitou "helped" him through it, then looked over at Aoshi.

"This one thought you said you liked Okita."

"I do," Aoshi returned absently.

"Doesn't seem like it—you just sent the Rabid Wolf after him."

"Hm." Aoshi set his pen down and pursed his lips, checking over the form he'd filled out. "Yes, well, he deserves it today."

Kenshin frowned faintly, a feeling of foreboding creeping over him.

"And why is that?"

"There's no way he gets to hide and escape while we suffer," Aoshi replied.

There was a long pause, and then from down the hall, the whole of criminal investigations—and possibly the entire precinct—heard Okita's panicked

"HELP! HE'S GONNA KILL ME!"

and Saitou's furious

"YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

"You're a cold cold man, Shinomori Aoshi." Kenshin said.

"'Justice is the constant and perpetual will to allot to every man his due.'"

A pause.

"Are you at all acquainted with the concept of mercy, Aoshi?"

"Don't be cute, Himura."

"Just curious."

"HELP ME DAMN IT!"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 16: A Cure For What Ails Ya:_

"I still don't think you're a dragon lady, though."

"You haven't known me long enough."

---

For some ludicrous reason that Saitou couldn't understand, the world didn't screech to a stop like it was supposed to.

---

"Is it hard for you?" she asked.

"Is what hard?" he asked, wary and thrown off.

"Carrying the big fat inflated head of yours around?" she snapped, and he glared at her in return.

---

"Well it's _your_ fault for _letting_ me be a perv, woman," he replied. "Can't complain about it this late in the game."

* * *

**Additional A/N:** Aoshi quotes Domitus Ulpian (100 AD-228 AD); many thanks to "The Quotations Page" for that line. 


	16. A Cure For What Ails Ya

**A/N:** So this is something that's been bothering me for a little bit: I've gotten a few anonymous reviews, and they asked me questions but then didn't leave their email addresses, so I didn't have any way of answering back. I'd really like it if any anon. reviewers could please start leaving them—I answer every review I get, really. And I'm pretty nice (of course, since it's my opinion, I may be slightly biased…). I don't like the folks reading my stuff to walk away with questions that I could easily answer for them. So don't be shy! I'm not quite as insane as I sound (which, again, is a matter of opinion….)

**Also:** **redhead13**—are you a clairvoyant, perchance?

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Also nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Sixteen: A Cure For What Ails Ya**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tuesday dawned bright and clear. The temperature had dropped enough that light coats were necessary, and the sky was a soft blue that seemed to make the air that much more sharply pleasant. According to the meteorologists (not that anyone believed half of what they said anyway, but it was nice to pretend sometimes) it was going to remain that way all through today and into tomorrow. It was going to be a beautiful day, all in all, they assured.

"Stupid weather," Tokio grumbled as she exited the train at the Bunkyo station along with a hundred other people on their way to work.

Some people hated Mondays, the start of their work week and the beginning of many headaches both real and imagined. The bane of Tokio's work week was Tuesday. Or it had been, until the break-in.

Now _every_ day was her least favorite day.

She left the station and walked to work, face like thunder, heels clicking sharply along the sidewalk as she expertly maneuvered around people. She'd learned a long time ago how to weave her way through a crowd, because being as short as she was, moving people out of her way wasn't an option. Today the skill served her well, as she was able to direct her mind to making sure she didn't crash into anyone, eyes darting around searching for an available hole to slip into…

…and maybe also looking for a certain set of stiff shoulders in a black policeman's coat.

Seeing Saitou yesterday had thrown her for a loop. For a second, anyway. She had not been expecting to see him so soon after their little argument. At least, she hadn't been expecting him to sort of just stumble upon her in the street like that. What she'd been expecting was for him to show up and apologize for being such a high-and-mighty asshole.

Kamatari was right: she _had_ been living in a fantasy.

She'd been expecting him to call her when he got to work. She'd fielded a phone call from Anji politely reminding her that his order had been screwed up; three from the people who had screwed up his order insisting they'd done no such thing, and then abashedly apologizing when they figured out that they actually had; two from her mother absolutely making sure she was going to be home for dinner that night; one from her brother asking her to please please _please_ tell their mother he wasn't going to be home for dinner that night; two from Teruhime asking if she 1) knew where in the name of the gods Jin'e had gotten off to because she needed him to look at a few pieces for her and he wasn't responding her to her calls, and 2) if she was free that night for a few cocktails; an alarming five from Katsura concerning the insurance company, who were becoming increasingly more persistent (read: _belligerent_) in their opinion that Tokio had screwed up on the claim she'd filed; and one from Sae, asking how she was and reminding her that all the information she'd need about upcoming appointments was on Sae's desk in her organizer.

But that chain-smoking bastard hadn't called once. And that had deeply pissed her off.

"I'm not giving in first, damn it," Tokio muttered, ignoring the fellow next to her who looked over at her and raised a concerned eyebrow as they stood, waiting to cross an intersection.

She knew waiting for Saitou to make the first move was an exercise in futility; if there was one thing that had been made utterly clear to her during the eight years they'd known each other, it was that he was a very stubborn man who yielded to no one. Unfortunately for him (and possibly also for her), Tokio had the same defect.

All of which meant that, if they were very lucky, at the rate they were going they'd be speaking to each other again when they died and met up in the afterlife.

And that was still a _huge_ maybe.

All that thinking had, of course done nothing to improve Tokio's mood by the time she arrived at the museum, swiping her card and stalking through the doors with a curt jerk of recognition when Aoshi greeted her with a bow and a quietly delivered "Good morning Tokio-san."

Perhaps if the weather had been more in tune with her mood, she would have been able to muster a "Good morning Shinomori-san" back, but Aoshi didn't seem to mind, and Tokio made a mental note to give him his lunch break around the same time as her new secretary's to make up for her rudeness.

And speaking of which….

Misao was already at Sae's desk when Tokio arrived, and Tokio was mildly surprised but very pleased by this; perhaps this wouldn't be quite as bad as Saitou had predicted it would be.

The young woman jumped up and scrambled around to stand in front of her desk when she caught sight of Tokio.

"Good morning Takagi-san," she said politely, bowing.

Tokio, having learned her lesson at their first meeting, waited until Misao was upright before replying, with a bow of her own,

"Good morning Makimachi-san." She straightened and managed a half-smile that she knew had to look very fake. "You're making an excellent impression on your first day."

Misao smiled, and Tokio noticed for the first time how nervous the other girl looked.

"Thank you ma'am," she gushed.

Tokio managed to stretch her fake half-smile into a full fake smile, and prayed Misao didn't notice and think her insincere.

"That's a very smart suit."

"Aoshi recommended it," Misao informed her, and Tokio raised an eyebrow, impressed; the pale gray pantsuit and white, eyelet collar shirt was very cute and still professional.

"He has very good taste," she decided. "Any mail for me?"

"Yes ma'am," Misao said quickly, turning and picking up a relatively small stack and then turning around and holding it out to her "boss."

Tokio accepted it and idly flipped through the stack, smiling to herself for real this time when she reached the end.

"I forgot to mention this, Makimachi-san," she began, meeting Misao's suddenly worried gaze, "but I was recently named Acting Director of the museum."

"Aoshi told me," Misao replied, confused.

"You forgot to stick the Director's mail in with mine," Tokio explained kindly, and Misao's cheeks pinked.

"Oh crud," Misao muttered, and Tokio's grin widened.

"Don't worry about it," she assured airily, going over to her door and turning the knob. "You can give it to me later, the world won't end because I didn't get it first thing in the morning. Explains why this stack was so thin, though."

Tokio dumped the mail onto her desk, plopped her purse down on top of it, and shrugged out of the coat she'd shoved into this morning; Misao scrambled in to take it from her.

"Thank you," Tokio said cheerfully, going over to her computer and turning it on.

"Uh…do you…would you like something?" Misao asked, tightly holding onto Tokio's coat and obviously trying to remember what someone else had told her.

Probably Aoshi telling her how and what she was supposed to act and do as Tokio's secretary.

Tokio smiled and sat down behind her desk.

"Makimachi-san," she said kindly, gesturing to one of the chairs in front of her, "please sit down."

Misao looked deeply worried by this turn of events, but slowly lowered herself into the chair Tokio had gestured to, perching on the end, the coat in her lap.

"Look, I know you aren't a secretary," Tokio began. "You were trained to be a policewoman, and that requires a different set of skills than this one does. So if you don't get it the first time, I'm going to understand. I'm not going to yell—you're doing me a favor by filling in for Sae while she's gone, after all. It's gonna be a little…strange. And probably a lot less orderly than I'd prefer. But I'm not gonna chew you out—I save Enishi for that."

Misao's wary face broke out into a relieved, grateful smile.

"Thanks Takagi-san," she murmured. "Aoshi said you'd be cool about this."

"Listen to him next time," Tokio advised. "He knows what he's talking about."

"I still don't think you're a dragon lady, though."

"You haven't known me long enough."

"That's what Saitou says," Misao muttered, rolling her eyes, and Tokio's left eyelid twitched. Noticeably.

_Pigheaded_ _ass._

"Is that right?" Tokio inquired, forcing herself to smile…and to loosen her grip on the armrests of her chair. _Change the subject change the subject change the subject!_ "Er…Makimachi-san, how long have you been with Shinomori-san?"

Misao's eyes widened.

"Uh…why do you ask?" she asked, cheeks pink.

"Curiosity," Tokio replied. _And because I need the distraction before I break something_, she silently added.

"No, I meant…what makes you think I'm with Aoshi?"

"Oh." Tokio shrugged. "I dunno. Just a feeling I got."

"I talk about him too much, don't I?" Misao asked despondently, and Tokio tried very hard not to smile and failed.

"It's cute," she assured.

Misao didn't look convinced, and Tokio smiled reassuringly.

"It's not annoying, honest," she said.

Misao watched her for a moment, then said,

"A year and three months and a half."

"Hm," was Tokio's reply, nodding.

"I've known him since I was little," Misao explained, as if the nod had been a go-ahead. "And I've been mooning over him since before I was even old enough to start thinking about having a boyfriend. And everyone always thought it was so cute, you know? Little Misao "in love" with Aoshi, wink wink, because of course I was way too young to really be in love with Aoshi. I thought he was gonna ignore me forever, you know?"

Tokio nodded again as a nicety, though she knew Misao hadn't wanted a response—it was a rhetorical question if ever Tokio had heard one, all right.

"But when I joined up with the police, Jiya asked him to look out for me, and he did, and once we started hanging out together more…well…stuff just…happened—" (from the furious blush on Misao's face, Tokio had a pretty good idea of what "stuff" she was referring to) "—and then…well, here we are."

"That's very sweet," Tokio murmured; she was definitely letting Aoshi have his lunch break with Misao.

"He's weird, though," Misao added thoughtfully.

"Most men are," Tokio agreed with a nod.

"He won't move in with me, even though it'd be super cheap if we split the rent halfway. Plus he wouldn't always be complaining when he leaves stuff at my place."

Tokio didn't have a response for that, so she decided her best course of action was to say nothing at all. Misao didn't seem to mind her new boss' silence in the least, as it happened (Tokio was pretty sure the younger woman was now on a roll anyway, and even if she'd wanted to, she probably wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgeways):

"He's goofy," Misao confided, and Tokio frowned in disbelief.

"Goofy?" she asked, a tad incredulous, as she remembered the taciturn young man who'd greeted her when she'd arrived.

"Yeah," Misao said with a sigh, wearing a grin that was decidedly goofy. "When he wakes up, he'll roll over and snuggle up with me and he'll start the oddest conversations—once we talked about koi for like twenty minutes. I can't remember what we said, exactly, but I do remember it was about koi."

Tokio blinked; Aoshi would _kill_ Misao if he knew she was telling people (read: Tokio) this….

"Uh…."

"And I couldn't believe he's a snuggler, can you? I never would have figured it. But he is, he really is. And so cute…you know his hair stands up in the morning when he gets up? And he has magic stubble."

Tokio blinked again.

"'Magic stubble'?" she parroted.

"Uh-huh," Misao said, nodding her head. "I don't where it comes from, because even when he goes to bed, it's not on his face, but when he wakes up, POOF!, magic stubble."

"…Huh," Tokio said finally, thoughtfully. "Magic stubble."

Misao nodded her head. Then she cocked her head and watched Tokio curiously.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Tokio said easily.

"How long have you been with Saitou?"

Tokio blinked in surprise.

"Uh…huh?"

"How long have you been with Saitou? 'Cause it looks like a long time. Though how you can put up with him, I have no idea."

_Yeah? Me either_, Tokio thought darkly.

"I…." Tokio frowned.

Technically—_technically_—she and Saitou weren't "together." At least not in any formal way. So technically—_technically_—the answer to Misao's questions was…well, they'd never been "together," now or ever.

Technically.

"We…that is…wait a minute, why do you think we've been together for a long time?" Tokio asked, frowning, suddenly remembering the second thing Misao had said.

The young woman shrugged.

"Uh-uh," she replied. "You guys looked…comfortable?" Misao scrunched up her face and seemed to be pondering this answer very deeply. "The teasing sounded like…you guys had known each other a long time and you were comfortable with each other."

_Oh if you only knew_, Tokio thought. _The man makes me so nervous it's a wonder_ _I haven't disgraced myself in front of him yet…ornery creep._

"Plus he really didn't like you being near that guy with the weirdo eyes," Misao added with a sly smile. "Like…he _really_ didn't like it."

Tokio snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Like I care what that malcontent likes," she muttered, and Misao coughed.

"Trouble?" she asked politely.

Tokio grinned widely at her.

"No more than usual," she cheerfully lied.

"Right," Misao said, obviously deciding to agree with her because she was afraid of the consequences.

_Still don't think I'm a dragon lady, huh kid?_ Tokio thought dryly, one eyebrow raised in amusement. _Pull the other one._

"Well," Misao said, suddenly remembering herself. "Did you want something Takagi-san?"

"Tea, and a plain doughnut," Tokio said, feeling like she was entitled the indulgence after the past few days, and Misao nodded and rose.

"Right," she said. "I'll be right back with your tea and a doughnut—plain."

The younger woman bowed and excused herself, then turned and began for the door.

"Makimachi-san?" Tokio called, and Misao paused and half-turned back to look at her new boss.

"Yes ma'am?"

Tokio smiled.

"When lunch time rolls around, make sure you find Shinomori-san," she said.

Misao watched her for a moment before understanding dawned, and she pinked and sent Tokio a shy, grateful smile.

"Thank you Takagi-san."

"Tokio-san," Tokio corrected gently.

"Misao-san," Misao replied, and Tokio smiled and nodded.

Misao left the office grinning from ear to ear, shutting the door behind her as she left, and as soon as she was gone, Tokio sighed wearily and slumped back, leaning her head against the chair back to stare up at the ceiling.

_Does Hajime have magic stubble?_ she wondered absently, then frowned, annoyed with herself.

Today, she decided sourly, was going to be a long day.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Saitou strolled into the luncheonette, still in something of a bad mood, he half expected Tokio to be at the counter, chatting with Shiori.

It took him two seconds to ascertain that she hadn't yet arrived. He didn't know if he was relieved or not.

And naturally, this didn't help his mood any.

"Saitou-san!" Shiori cheerfully greeted. "Haven't seen you for ages! Thought you'd left us for good."

"I was at the museum," he said before he thought better of it.

"That was awful," Shiori immediately said, frowning. "Poor Tokio-san. Is she all right?"

Saitou grit his teeth and reminded himself that Shiori didn't know she was irritating him by asking about the one person who could set him off today.

"Fine, last I saw of her," he said a little tightly.

"Yeah?" Shiori asked, looking dubious. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," he snapped, then took a moment to settle his nerves. "Yes," he repeated, voice more controlled this time. "Why do you ask?"

Shiori sent him a vaguely suspicious, considering look, complete with raised eyebrow.

"She sent someone to get her lunch," she answered warily.

For some ludicrous reason that Saitou couldn't understand, the world didn't screech to a stop like it was supposed to.

He stared at her for several moments, stunned and thrown off and pretty sure it was showing on his face, before he was able to get a grip.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked finally, somehow able to sound mild and perfectly in control of himself, if a little surprised.

"Yeah," Shiori said, jerking her thumb down the counter, and Saitou's gaze followed the motion and fell on one of the museum assistants—Umezu, if he remembered correctly. "Man down there said Tokio-san was tied up and couldn't come down today."

It took Saitou exactly three seconds to get good and pissed—if that belligerent, snot-nosed _child_ thought she was going to ignore him a second time in as many days, she was _sorely_ mistaken….

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Misao had spent a better part of the morning fielding calls for Tokio, who had explained her duties to her when she'd brought the older woman her tea and doughnut.

"You're in charge of letting me know when, where and with whom I have appointments," Tokio had explained, breaking off a piece of doughnut and popping it into her mouth. "You're in charge of answering the phone and regulating who I talk to. For today, since you're still new to the drill, just ask me if I want to speak to whoever's calling before you patch 'em through. Once you've done it a few times, you'll start to pick up the pattern. As a general rule of thumb, unless it's Katsura-san or Takasugi-san, you have to ask. Or Tomoe-san. Those three have automatic clearance. Everyone else I have the right to ignore or acknowledge at my discretion.

"You're also sort of my personal assistant. If and when I need something, I'm going to be asking you to get it or do it for me. This isn't a hard job, exactly, but because I'm the way that I am, it's going to be very time-consuming and detail-oriented. Good luck. And nice job on the tea and doughnut."

So far, Misao hadn't been having a problem, though it had taken her a while to understand Sae's filing system, since as far as Misao could tell it didn't follow any kind of universally recognized system. She was tempted to try and put it in alphabetical order, but as she wasn't sure how long she was going to be working as Tokio's secretary, she resisted the urge as best she could and tried to get acquainted with it quick.

It was nearing on lunch time and nearly time for her to go and find Aoshi, but she'd made something of a mess and decided she couldn't just leave her desk like that, so she began shuffling it into order and made it somewhat more presentable than it had been.

And then Saitou scared the crap out of her when he materialized, seemingly out of nowhere, next to her desk.

"Weasel—get lost," he barked, and Misao loudly yelped and shot out of her seat.

"GAH!" she shouted, hand over her heart, which was threatening to fly out of her chest and hit Saitou square in the face. The cartoon spring that usual accompanied that sort of thing was optional. "Gods above Saitou-san! What the heck is wrong with you! You scared the crap outta me!"

"Get lost," Saitou snapped again.

Misao glared at him.

"Tokio-san said to tell her when I was going to—"

"You don't want me to repeat myself a third time, Makimachi," Saitou said, voice low and dangerous.

Misao took one look at his face and decided she completely agreed with him. So, without another word of protest, she meekly grabbed her purse and beat a hasty retreat from the desk without a backward glance. Saitou watched her go, then turned his narrowed gaze to Tokio's door.

Ignore him, would she? She had another thing coming….

When he walked into her office and closed the door behind him, he found her on the phone, her glasses perched at the end of her nose. She was looking down at her desk, and the expression on her face told him she was frustrated and trying not to let it seep into her voice:

"You're sure, Katsura-san? But I don't understand what the problem is! I—yes, I gave them every scrap of paper related in any shape or form to the insurance…there can't be anything missing, sir, with all due respect. I sent the proper forms and the photographs the officers took, along with the police report, to them. Everything I had, I gave to them, even stuff they didn't ask for, just in case. Everything we ever got from them, I made a copy of and sent to them. …No, sir, I filled out everything I was supposed to…yes sir…yes sir…I know sir, I did that…that too. Katsura-san, I _swear_, _on my honor_, I filled out everything I was supposed to fill out, I sent them everything I was supposed to send them, I had Enishi look it over for me to make sure everything was the way it was supposed to be, and then I sent it _all_ to them. So if they're telling you there's some kind of problem, it's on their end, because I filled out everything I was supposed to." There was a long pause, and Tokio's expression turned mutinous, but she made sure it didn't come out in her voice when she said, "I'll check again, sir. Yes sir. I know."

That was about when she noticed that she was no longer alone, and she looked up, impatiently saying,

"Misao-san, just g—" She stared at him, obviously surprised, for several moments in silence. Then said, "I'll have to call you back, Katsura-san, something's come up that needs my attention," and slowly hung up her phone, never taking her eyes off him.

There was a long stretch of silence after that.

"To what do I owe the pleasure…Officer?" she asked finally, and his eyes narrowed.

"You weren't at the luncheonette," he said quietly, and she raised an eyebrow.

"I'm behind on a lot of work today," she replied. "Stepping out for lunch wasn't convenient."

"The hell it wasn't," he growled. "Work's never stopped you from going to the luncheonette."

"I was never Acting Director before either," she said, voice impatient. "Now if you're done, I have a lot to do, so—"

"Shut up," he cut in. "I'm not done, so calm the hell down. I'll leave when I feel like it."

Her expression cooled and flattened at that.

"If you think I won't call security on you, just try it."

"If you think I won't put your security in the hospital, you try it," he shot back.

Saitou had never really seen Tokio well and truly upset, which was why he didn't recognize the signs until she shot up out of her chair.

"You get the hell out of my office, damn it, and don't you come in here ever again you pompous son of a—!"

"Don't feed me bullshit stories!" he shouted. "You must be touched in the head if you think I'd believe you were too tied up to go to the luncheonette now when it never stopped you before!"

"Well if you're too stupid to understand such a simple concept—!"

"You aren't that goddamn busy and you know it!"

"Stop interrupting me!"

"Stop talkin' shit!"

Tokio sent him a seething look.

"What is this about, huh?" she demanded. "Some juvenile payback for yesterday?"

That was exactly what it was, but the hell if he was going to admit that—he'd cut out his tongue first.

"What's the matter Chiisai?" he taunted. "Too chicken to face me in the luncheonette?"

Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Is it hard for you?" she asked.

"Is what hard?" he asked, wary and thrown off.

"Carrying the big fat inflated head of yours around?" she snapped, and he glared at her in return.

"That was low," he growled.

"You need to be brought down a few notches," she replied.

"Yeah? Well you could use a little humbling yourself, or do you fancy yourself perfect?"

"Contrary to what all the other women who've fawned over you may have told you, you're not special," Tokio snapped. "You're a bad-tempered, nicotine-addicted, high-and-mighty jack ass and I want you out of my office or I'll call the security team you forced on me and _your_ _coworkers_ can escort you out!"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was impressed at how well she knew how to use his own pride against him—there was no way he'd subject himself to the indignity of the security team of his precinct (which he was in charge of through Aoshi) escorting him out of the museum and they both knew it.

Really, if he hadn't been so infuriated he would have congratulated her.

"Don't bother," he snarled, "I'll see myself out. And just for the record, _Chiisai_, if I'm a bad-tempered, nicotine-addicted, high-and-mighty jack ass, you're a whiny, self-centered little brat—so I'd say we're about even!"

And so saying, he spun around on his heel, threw the door open and stalked out, slamming it shut behind him in time for the pencil holder she'd chucked at his head to crash into the door.

He stalked down the hallway, face absolutely terrifying, and wishing he had a katana on him because if ever there was a time he wanted to hack up something—or even better _someone_—it was now, and it was all that frustrating woman's fault—

"Well that was quite a fight," a familiar voice drawled, and Saitou looked to the left and found Kamatari leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and a smug smirk on his face. "Name-calling and everything—bravo, Assistant Inspector."

"If you want to live to see the sun come up tomorrow, get the f—"

"Ah ah ah—language, please," Kamatari chided, wagging a finger at him. "Now really Saitou-san, I'm just trying to help you. This'd be a lot easier if you'd just listen to me. I've known Tokio-chan a long time, and I know all her weird little tendencies as if they were my own." The effeminate man cocked his head and considered Saitou. "You know, you're being awfully stupid about this—you could have avoided that ugly scene if you'd done even a tenth of what I recommended the other day."

"Go to hell," Saitou muttered darkly, and Kamatari narrowed his eyes.

"And did things go the way you planned?" he prodded impatiently, and Saitou eyed him in silent fury.

Kamatari snorted and turned his nose up in the air.

"Bet you didn't even have a plan," he muttered, face the picture of annoyance. "Just came in here like a caveman and expected Tokio-chan to kowtow. You ought to know by now that she's very independent and doesn't appreciate being dictated to or treated like an inferior, and it's your own fault if you hadn't realized that by now, because you've had more than enough time. Her father never wanted his little girl to be taken advantage of so he raised her up to be assertive and use her head. Now the second part didn't take quite as well as the first part—I love Tokio to death, but I'm not blind. But it's a fact that that mentality's seeped into every part of her personality. So the question then becomes, are you sure you can live with that, Saitou-san?"

Saitou was quiet for a long time, watching this man, this friend of Tokio's who was willing to help him fix what he'd made a mess of (though how he'd made this mess he had no idea, which he supposed was a big part of the problem).

"Why so eager to help me?" he asked finally, voice grudging and suspicious.

"Because when the two of you aren't fighting you make her happy," Kamatari replied, and Saitou was a little surprised by the sincerity of the answer.

"Yeah?" he asked after a moment.

"Yeah," Kamatari affirmed. He grinned. "Now then: you've tried things your way—it's time to try things _my_ way."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio was still in a black mood when she left the museum around six, laden down with a very full briefcase and her purse, and bundled into her coat, glad for its protection against the wind that had picked up as the sun went down.

She'd been hoping to talk to Kamatari about Saitou's appearance, but the effeminate man had left early to resolve some issues with the paint he'd ordered and the person he'd contacted to redo the wall art. There was no one else she could really talk to this about without explaining the whole fiasco from the beginning, which was inconvenient and also embarrassing for her, because she knew she'd acted irrational Sunday night at Saitou's apartment.

But he was so…argh! She wouldn't have kept bugging him about it if he'd just told her nicely that it was off limits. But he'd had to go and be such a prick about it, tell her no without any kind of explanation and then expect her not to take issue with the fact that as far as he was concerned the conversation was over. In the end it didn't matter, because she'd gotten what she needed from Kenshin (she still felt bad about asking him, though; the redhead had sounded so sad and haunted), but it galled her that Saitou had just blown her off like that.

It had also given her an uneasy feeling. Because Saitou had been a comrade of Kenshin's back then, and if Kenshin had been as deeply involved with Yukishiro-san's death as she thought he was—she was still having trouble wrapping her head around that idea, still unable to reconcile the gruesome slaying with the gentle man who'd supposedly perpetrated it—it made her wonder what Saitou had done all those years back…and if he'd still been doing it when they'd first met.

Did he have blood on his hands too…?

_I don't need this now_, she thought wearily, rubbing her forehead with chilly fingers. _I can't **deal** with this now…._

And really, she couldn't: she had filed an insurance claim for the exhibit and the artifacts that had been covered a few days after the break-in, and now there seemed to be some kind of "problem" (the company was being sketchy with the details) that Katsura had offered to take care of for her. Only it seemed he wasn't making much headway either. It also seemed like the insurance company was irritating the famously unflappable Katsura, and if they weren't careful, Tokio thought with some dark amusement, Katsura would show up at their offices one day and take care of "the problem" with a katana.

Secretly, she was sort of hoping it got to that point, if only to see Katsura in action. Takasugi was fond of telling her about what an accomplished swordsman Katsura was, and if he was to be believed (Takasugi talked a lot of b.s., Tokio had learned over the years, so you could never quite trust everything he said to be the gospel truth), Katsura would have been one of the top swordsmen in Japan if he hadn't given it up.

She paused when she saw a figure seated on the museum steps. She nearly turned around and went back in to inform Aoshi that there was something loitering around out front, but she recognized that jacket and she suddenly felt _so_ freaking tired of fighting and arguing, and _so_ freaking tired of _him_….

"Saitou-san," she greeted, voice tinged with weariness, as she stopped next to him.

"Tokio," he replied.

A pause.

"Waiting for something in particular?"

"Just for you to come out."

She sighed.

"Saitou-san, I'm very tired," she began.

"I'm not here to pick up where we left off," he interrupted, and she paused, watching him. He looked up at her, cigarette dangling lazily out of the corner of his mouth. "Sit," he invited (or pseudo-ordered, really, because while it wasn't delivered as a command, there was still something vaguely bossy about it), and after a long pause, she slowly lowered herself down to sit next to him on the step.

They sat side by side in silence for a long time, Saitou smoking and Tokio waiting for some kind of explanation, puzzled and suspicious by this development. Finally, he reached over and grabbed something on his other side that she couldn't see and lifted it up. It turned out to be a nondescript paper bag of medium size, and from the looks of it, it was filled with something. Not looking at her, he held the bag out to her, and Tokio blinked, surprised, then hesitantly accepted it. She stared at the bag for several moments, wondering what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to reply, and then looked up at him for some kind of clue. He didn't meet her gaze right away, and then he sighed impatiently as the minutes ticked by and she kept staring at him.

"Open the fucking bag already!" he snapped, and she immediately took offense.

"Don't yell at me!" she shouted.

He sent her a furious look, then went back to watching the street, only this time he was wearing a glare that had the real potential of killing someone should an unlucky pedestrian happen by.

"Just open it," he muttered, bad temper in his voice, and Tokio glared at him for a few minutes longer just to piss him of before she jerkily unfolded the top and looked in, and then stopped, the contents bringing her up short and deflating her anger and annoyance immediately.

The bag was filled almost to the top with caramels from the candy shop in Ginza she was so fond of.

Her heart flipped over in her chest and she slowly smiled. Somehow or another, he'd found out that when she was upset, she indulged in caramels. Any candy would have helped, but there was something about the caramels that did wonders for her mood when she was feeling pecked at and frustrated.

That stupid, pigheaded, thoughtful jerk.

He'd bought her candy.

She reached into the bag, daintily picked one up and unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth, feeling touched and having the strangest urge to cry. Instead she sighed in contentment and closed her eyes and enjoyed her gift. Then, once she'd swallowed, she opened her eyes and looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and found him watching her out of the corner of his eye, expression inscrutable. She smiled, picked up another caramel and unwrapped it and held it out to him, and he took it after a moment of staring at it.

He rubbed out his cigarette and popped it into his mouth, and Tokio leaned over and laid her head against his arm.

"Thank you," she said.

He didn't verbally reply; instead, he edged his arm around her and tucked her into his side, and she snuggled against him, smiling and thinking she was probably going to do something dumb like cry really soon.

As far as peace offerings went, this one was gold.

Saitou, meanwhile, was resigned to the fact that he was never going to hear the end of it from Kamatari, and also feeling a little stupid for being such a moron and not taking the other man's advice in the first place. He was also more than a little annoyed with the fact that the other man had been absolutely right about Tokio's reaction.

It appeared he still had a lot to learn about her.

He had to admit, though, that he much rather preferred her like this than pissed off at him. And he supposed that if it meant he got better at handling her, he could deal with feeling like a loser, at least until he figured it all out.

"Wanna finish that movie from the other night?" he asked, still not looking at her, because he wasn't used to this kind of thing and was feeling awkward despite having been successful.

He felt her move her head to look up at him, and when she didn't reply he made himself look down at her, wondering what was so hard about answering that question that it should be taking this long. He found her beaming up at him.

"I'd like that," she said and leaned up and kissed him, still smiling.

It was really disgraceful how cute he thought she was. It ought to have made him feel disgusted with himself, really. But there was something about her that made that response impossible.

Aw hell: he'd gone over to the Dark Side. Next he'd be composing sonnets in her honor. Or worse, giving her disgustingly cute nicknames…like "Pookie."

He shuddered at the thought.

"Come on jerk face," she said cheerfully, hopping up to her feet with the candy he'd bought for her—at no small cost to his wallet—clutched to her chest with one hand, her other one holding her brief case and a huge smile on her face.

"'Jerk face', huh?" he dryly inquired, lazily getting to his feet and sliding his hands into his jacket pockets.

"I call it like I see it," she replied teasingly.

"Brat," he teased back, and grinned when she blew a loud raspberry in his direction.

Now this childishness was more like it.

"What have I said about sticking you tongue out at me?" he asked, raising one eyebrow and waiting for the familiar response. She did not disappoint:

"Pervert," she said, shaking her head with a sigh of mock resignation.

"Well it's _your_ fault for _letting_ me be a perv, woman," he replied. "Can't complain about it this late in the game."

"And how you came up with _that_, I prefer not to know," she decided with a considering look, and he rolled his eyes.

"Come on annoyance," he said, draping an arm around her shoulders and tucking her into his side. "We've got an hour left to get through before you start threatening to sic your father on me for keeping you too long."

She smiled cheerfully in reply, not bothering to deny it, but thankfully not inclined to take issue with it either.

This didn't solve everything, of course, and he realized that and he was pretty sure she did too. But at least they were talking to each other now, and that was a start, at any rate.

Time would tell if that was enough of a consolation for being forever indebted to one Honjou Kamatari, however.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 17: The Tokio Two-Step:_

"Oh son of a bitch," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "What the hell do we have to do to get some good news around here, huh?"

"We could always try live human sacrifices," Tokio offered.

---

"So if you know I know that, why are you wasting my time reciting it to me?"

"'Cause you're a retard, retard."

---

Kamatari spread his arms and smiled.

"Welcome to the magical world of Tokio, where reason is on permanent holiday and the irrational reigns supreme."

---

"Aw, she's cute." He looked over at Saitou, grin becoming decidedly evil. "So how much are you payin' her to pretend to be your girlfriend, Hajime-kun?"


	17. The Tokio Two Step

**FFdotNet IS A MAJOR PAIN IN MY ASS.** Just thought I'd share that sentiment with you. Because FFdotNet is a total bitch, I was not able to post this chapter until much later than I wanted to. An hour and a half of trying to get the damn thing to post ended in much abusive language from my end, and several error messages from their end. I am still very very cranky—**I don't like people screwing with my schedule damn it.**

Right then. "The Exorcist" rant (complete with spinning head and demonic voice) is now concluded. Moving on to actual business, as we're runnin' behind and all….

**We are visited this chapter by a character from another fandom.** He probably exists in some form in RK, but it was simply more convenient for me to rip him off from the other fandom. So any Shinsengumi fans (_hint-hint_) will probably be really happy to see him. And that's all I'm gonna say—read on (like you even read this to start with…aren't delusions fun?)

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

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Words To Watch Out For:

bupkis: a "Yiddishism"; means nothing. It's also very fun to say. Simple pleasures for simple minds. : ).

sandanzuki: "three-part-thrust"; Shinsengumi buffs will recognize this as Okita's famous, personally developed move. This technique could hit the neck, the left shoulder and the right shoulder in rapid succession, so goes the story.

senpai: upperclassman/predecessor; essentially someone who has studied or been there before you (definition taken from Calger's Anime Shrine, where y'all can find a damn fine glossary); you also see it written as "sempai," and it's my understanding that both forms are acceptable, though "senpai" is the more correct of the two

seppuku: ritual suicide. And when I say ritual, I mean _ritual_; I loathe saying this, but Wikipedia (twitch) is the only place I've found a fairly good summary of it so far. How much is accurate I can't say, but it looks pretty okay, considering the source. I'd suggest going there if you're curious.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

The Diet: by the Japanese Constitution, the most powerful of the three branches of the Japanese government, consisting of two houses, the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. The Diet directs the Emperor in the appointment & removal of the chiefs of the executive & judicial branches, and the executive branch reports directly to the Diet. So yeah, these are some guys you really don't want to piss off.

White Day: In Japan, Valentine's Day is, for those unfamiliar with this practice, the day when women give the men in their lives candy and what-not. One month later, on what's known as White Day for reasons I could not find, the guys return the gesture. It's very funny. Not ha-ha funny, the other one—it's interesting funny. Though I guess it could be ha-ha funny too.

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Seventeen: The Tokio Two-Step_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

At least her personal life was doing well.

Tokio wished the same could be said of her professional.

She'd spent the entire week dividing her time between harassing people into getting their damn jobs done and making nice with the representatives from the historical societies that had come in to inspect the museum to decide what amount, if any, they were willing to kick in towards getting the museum out of the hole. It wasn't the easiest task she'd ever had, but she knew the consequences would be dire if she let Enishi handle the reps. She was better at pretending to be calm and understanding than Enishi, who was the kind of person who didn't hesitate to bluntly tell someone to go to hell if he annoyed the white-haired man enough.

And as admirable a trait as that was, it wasn't conducive to getting the money they so desperately needed.

"How goes the prostituting?" Enishi asked when she walked into his office without bothering to knock.

She shut the door and leaned back against it, arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face.

"I wish you'd stop calling it that," she said.

He shrugged and leaned back in his seat, taking a break from staring at his computer screen and crunching more numbers; he'd been watching their accounts very carefully so as to further refine their revised budget.

"I call it like I see it," he replied. "Is the act getting us anywhere?"

"No," she moaned, coming up off the door and walking to one of the chairs in front of his desk, which she plopped into with none of her usual grace. "Not one of them's bitten yet."

"Did you show them the cannon?"

"Yeah—bupkis."

Enishi raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

"Really?" he asked, long used to Tokio's having incorporated random words from other languages into her conversation. "Damn. The cannon's really messed up, too. If that can't convince 'em we're screwed."

"I know," she replied sourly.

They sat in silence for a long time, and then Enishi asked,

"How many more we got?"

"Two," Tokio returned, and Enishi's frown deepened.

"This is not good, Tokio," he said.

"I know!" she moaned, burying her face in her hands.

"The banks've given us a grand total of half a million yen altogether, and it's helped a little, but there's no way—"

"I know, it isn't enough." Tokio finished. She sighed and dropped her hands from her face, expression pensive. "We're in trouble if these last two don't give us anything, and Katsura-san can't get those idiots at the insurance company to get their crap together."

"Are you _sure_ you filled out everything—?" Enishi began.

"Yes, damn it! For the thousandth time, yes!" Tokio snapped.

"I'm just sayin'," Enishi said in a placating tone, hands up in case she decided to chuck something at him, "that maybe they're right, is all."

"Did you or did you not check over the forms?" Tokio demanded.

Enishi sighed.

"Yes I checked over the forms," he said wearily, eyes going heavenward.

"And did you see anything I forgot to fill in?"

"No I didn't see anything you forgot to fill in."

"Then stop asking me."

"Yeah yeah yeah."

Another long pause, and then Enishi asked, in an effort to change the subject to something less depressing,

"Heard from legal about the Shinuchi?"

"Also bupkis."

"Oh son of a bitch," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "What the hell do we have to do to get some good news around here, huh?"

"We could always try live human sacrifices," Tokio offered.

Enishi sent her a flat look.

"Has anyone ever told you you're a twisted woman?"

"Why Enishi that's what I have you for."

"Ah, right." He sighed and scratched the back of his head. "So now what?"

"So now," Tokio said wearily, "I'm going to get my lunch, and then I'm going to come back and get into another fight with Kamatari-chan about his wild, frivolous spending before going back to breaking in my fill-in secretary."

"How's that working out?" Enishi asked, looking amused.

"Pretty good—she's not a disaster," Tokio replied thoughtfully. "Doesn't always engage her brain before she opens her mouth, but I can forgive that, since I do it when I forget." She looked wistful. "Coffee's not as good as Sae's, though. Sae makes great coffee."

"Yeah," Enishi agreed longingly.

They sighed in unison, and then Tokio rose.

"Well, I'm out," she said. "You gonna stay late?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah. By the way, I was thinking of asking everyone to stay after tomorrow so we could have a staff meeting and address some issues. We should've called one sooner, but last week was a mess."

"I was there remember?" Enishi replied, but he nodded. "Yeah, okay. Wanna go over that tonight?"

Tokio nodded. "Think you could make sure Misao-san gets the word out to everyone while I'm out? I shouldn't be too long."

"Don't worry about it," Enishi said with a careless wave. "I'll handle it. Say "Yo" to your Inspector for me—haven't seen him shadowing you all week."

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"He's been conducting a surveillance of Wu's residence," she informed him. "Him and Himura-san."

Enishi's expression soured at the mention of Kenshin, and Tokio sighed, exasperated.

"Oh come on Enishi," she chided. "What's your problem with Himura-san, anyway?"

"He's a bastard, that's my problem," Enishi muttered, scowling.

"Oh he is not," Tokio said with a snort. "He's a very nice man."

"Yeah whatever," Enishi muttered and Tokio leaned over and cuffed him over the head. "Ow! What the hell, damn it?"

"Himura-san is a very nice man," she repeated, "and you're being a total prick."

"I've got my reasons," Enishi muttered sourly, rubbing his abused skull.

"Like?" she challenged.

"Like none of your business," he shot back.

"Tell me," Tokio ordered.

"No."

She whacked him over the head again, harder this time, and he yelped again.

"Tell me."

"No!"

She raised her hand to hit him again, and he threw his arms up to protect his head. So she changed tactics: rather than hit him again, her hand shot out, managed to grab hold of one of his nipples and then she twisted, and he let out a very shrill, womanish yelp that she decided would come in very useful should she need to blackmail him at some point in the future.

"All right all right you crazy wench!" he yelled. "Just stop already!"

She let go and he clutched at the spot, wincing and sending her a bitter look. She raised an eyebrow.

"He broke Tomoe's heart ten years ago." he said finally, and Tokio's gaze softened. "It was right after they murdered Dad, and that heartless bastard called the wedding off and didn't give her a reason. Just said he couldn't marry her."

Tokio considered him quietly.

"I see," she murmured at long last. She smiled faintly at him, and Enishi caught it and sent her a wary look.

"What?" he asked, going very still and looking like he was two seconds from jumping out of his seat and running for his life.

Her smile widened, and Enishi looked even more alarmed, if that was possible.

"What?" he demanded, raising his voice. "What what what? Why're you lookin' at me like that? Quit it, it's creepy!"

Tokio leaned over his desk, and he cringed, waiting to be whacked again. Instead, she kissed his cheek and patted his head.

"You're a sweet little brother, Enishi," she said, still smiling.

Enishi, however, was horrified:

"Oh gross! Why the _hell_ did you do that? Christ Tokio!" he wailed, scrubbing at his cheek.

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Child," she accused.

"You're trying to give me some weirdo virus, aren't you?" he demanded, jabbing his finger in her direction.

She shook her head and sighed in resignation as she turned around and began for his door.

"I'll be back in half an hour," she said.

Enishi didn't appear to hear her, bemoaning his fate as he was, sure he'd just contracted some god-awful disease and he'd be dead in a week or less.

Despite the appallingly juvenile nature of his reaction, Tokio was glad for it; no matter what happened in the rest of the museum, the relationship between the two of them stayed the same, and she appreciated its constancy.

And if that was a little unhealthy, well, she'd never claimed to be a shining example of mental health.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

If there was one thing Saitou appreciated about being on a stake out with Himura, it was that the other man disliked him to nearly the degree that Saitou disliked Himura, and consequently there wasn't a lot of talking.

Himura had always been a polite if antisocial man, but Saitou had never quite swallowed the polite part. They'd worked in the department for too long together, and Saitou had seen a different Himura than the one currently working alongside him, one that wasn't quite as polite and courteous. One that, given the right conditions, could give even him a moment's pause, and that had led Saitou to conclude that "polite" wasn't a natural state of being for the redhead.

In the years since their days in the department, though, "polite" had become the smaller man's mantra, what with the "-dono"ing (which pissed him off for absolutely no reason—at least not one that made any sense, anyway) and the "this one"ing. That last bit had started pretty much right after Himura had whacked his would-be father-in-law by mistake. Saitou vividly remembered that incident, because Okita had gotten involved and dragged Saitou into it. Plus his own personal life had been in the crapper around the same time and he'd been drinking a lot of saké, and that little combination ensured that it took next to nothing to piss him off. That was about the point in his life when he'd realized he could be one mean s.o.b. when he was into his cups and nursing a funk.

It was also the first and last time he'd been put on probation.

Okita still liked to give him crap about that to this day—straight-as-an-arrow Saitou Hajime, suspended and tossed into solitary confinement for a month for insubordinate behavior, including flagrantly disobeying direct orders and threatening two superiors with slow and painful death after slow and painful torture.

Among other charges.

Okita, however, always rather conveniently forgot his own stint in solitary for (surprise surprise) insubordinate behavior. The only difference was his stint had been a week long. And, well, he hadn't been drunk or nearly as belligerent and pissed off as Saitou, either.

Another reason Saitou liked stake outs with Himura was that it gave him a break from Okita.

They'd become friends in primary school after discovering, purely by chance, that they both had a passion for kenjutsu. Saitou had never gone to a formal school like Okita had, though—he'd been taught by his father. For better or worse. And very often it was impossible to tell which was closer to the truth.

But as long as they'd been friendly, it was still mutually beneficial if they spent some time apart from each other, because as nice a guy as Okita was usually, if he stuck around Saitou long enough, they'd kill each other. And as luck would have it, they'd discovered this little defect in their friendship when they'd lived together in their old unit's dormitory with all the other operatives.

The guys who remembered that night still talked about how amazingly agile Saitou had been to avoid the worst of Okita's "sandanzuki" (there was a long scar on his left arm, from the back of his hand to his elbow, to remind him of the incident), and how frickin' fast Okita had been able to back pedal out of Saitou's strike zone before he got hit by a Zeroshiki Gatotsu…in the liver—he hadn't quite been able to completely avoid it, and he liked to show off the scar he had in his right side and blatantly lie about how he'd gotten it to the new recruits.

Currently, if Saitou remembered correctly, the story was that he'd been gored during the running of the bulls in Pamplona.

Next to him, Kenshin let out a polite cough.

"What?" Saitou demanded, not bothering to look at the other man.

"Is it time to check in yet?"

Saitou glanced at his wristwatch.

"Another hour," he replied around the cigarette he was nearly done with.

Kenshin grunted softly, then asked,

"Should we wait to eat until after we check in?"

"Why so concerned with food?"

"If we wait too long, it'll take longer than if we were to go…like now."

Saitou shrugged.

"I guess," he said. "I'll stay, just in case."

Kenshin nodded, and left to find a vendor after Saitou had put in some money, leaving the Wolf blissfully alone.

He crushed his cigarette butt out in the car's ash tray (it was getting _really_ full), then sat back and went back to watching Wu's house.

It was broad daylight, and no one was seriously expecting the oily creep try anything, but the MPD wasn't willing to take any chances. It was strictly by the books on this one, from start to finish.

And Saitou had never been so sick to death of "the books" in his life.

His phone went off and he answered it without looking to see who it was, since he was pretty sure it was Tokio, so he was thrown off when he heard Okita say,

"You're a slob, dude."

There was a long pause as Saitou recovered from the surprise. Then:

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You didn't clean up after yourself when you were sniffing through the government database last week, my friend," Okita said dryly, and Saitou swore under his breath. "Lucky for you I covered your tracks for you before someone noticed."

"Shit," Saitou muttered. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I was in a hurry."

"You have no finesse anyway, mind you, so I'm not surprised or nothin'," Okita continued, "but I think I'm gonna have to give you a refresher course on being an effective hacker."

"I barely ever use my old codes," Saitou irritably replied, glaring out the windshield.

"And lucky for you," was the wry reply. "You'd a been facing some stiff charges, dude. The MPD doesn't play that shit unless someone ordered you to go snooping. And even then, it's gotta be cleared by the top brass, as well you know."

"So if you know I know that, why are you wasting my time reciting it to me?"

"'Cause you're a retard, retard."

Saitou's gaze narrowed.

"Don't forget I know where you live."

"Right back at 'cha, 'tard."

"Okita," Saitou snapped. "Stop being a dick and get on with it."

"Ah well, if it's an order from the Head Dick, then I gotta comply," Okita returned cheekily, and Saitou's jaw tightened—he really was _not_ in the mood for this crap today. "I've been checkin' out our boy Wu's friends, and he rolls with some fat cats. I found some links—mind you, they're circumstantial, but they're links—to a few members of the Diet, and possibly even a few of our own guys."

Saitou was quiet a long time.

"That psychopath was right," he muttered.

"What psychopath?" Okita asked, sounding wary and curious.

"Kurogasa," Saitou replied, and heard Okita choke on the other end.

"What the fuck!" he yelped. "Since when do you get tips from that shit?!?"

"I didn't get any tips from him," Saitou snapped. "He made a comment off-hand, and I just wanted to see if he was bullshitting me—you know he's a mind fuck that likes to play with people."

"Well when the hell did he make his 'off-hand comment'?" Okita demanded.

"The night I tried to knock his teeth down his throat," Saitou muttered.

There was a long pause on Okita's end, and then he sighed wearily.

"Bastard," he muttered. "I can't believe you went after him and didn't say anything to me. That's fucking selfish, Hajime."

"Oh shut up," Saitou irritably returned.

"It is! I hate his guts as much as you do, but you kept the fun all to yourself. Man. I knew you were an asshole, but this is _unbelievable_!"

"Would you shut the hell up already? Jesus, you act like I left you out on purpose."

"You did you dick!"

"I didn't go there to beat the shit out of him! I wanted information! The beating the shit out of him part just sort of…happened, I don't know."

There was another long pause, and then Saitou's eyes narrowed when he caught music playing faintly in the background.

"What is that?" he asked sharply.

"What's what?" Okita asked innocently.

"That music. What is it?"

"What music? I don't hear anything, Hajime—you know, I think you're working too hard, maybe you should use a few of your vacation days—"

"You're listening to that American crap you like so much, aren't you?" Saitou accused.

"I'll thank you to be more respectful when speaking about Mr. Hank Williams Senior, Saitou-san," Okita said importantly, complete with offended little sniff. "And it's not 'American crap', it's country and western music."

"It's crap," Saitou shot back. "I can't believe you're subjecting the rest of the department to that god-awful—"

"I'm alone in the office, if you must know, and I've got the door closed," Okita stiffly interrupted. "I never gave you shit about your music preferences, and I'd appreciate the same courtesy."

"Yeah, because _I_ have good taste in music," Saitou dryly replied.

"Elvis could be considered country and western, douche."

"Elvis is the King of Rock and Roll—_douche_."

"You're not even here! What the hell do you care if I play the music I like!"

"I care because it's crap and it offends me on principle."

"Asshole," Okita muttered.

"Anything else?" Saitou asked, taking a new cigarette out of his pack.

"Yeah—what were you doing snooping through civilian records?" Okita asked, and Saitou paused, surprised again.

"Uh…nothing?" he tried, cursing himself at the same time because he couldn't come up with a reasonable excuse.

"Uh-huh," Okita replied dryly. "So how often do you screen prospective girlfriends like this?"

"I do _not_ screen prospective girlfriends with the government records, Souji," Saitou returned, equal parts exasperated and…actually, it was just exasperated.

"Well you should, it's a great idea. Plus, you know, you could weed out the psychos this way."

"Tokio's not a psycho, damn it!" Saitou snapped.

"So when're you meetin' her old man?" Okita asked gleefully, clearly intent on ignoring his friend. "Man, you sure know how to pick 'em—do you purposely go for the ones with the bat-shit insane fathers or is that something new to make things more interesting?"

"I'm hanging up now," Saitou said tightly.

"Aw come on, tell me! Don't be like that Haj—"

Saitou had never believed he could gain so much satisfaction from hanging up on someone until he viciously ended his phone call with Okita. Hell, he felt almost giddy. In fact, he derived so much enjoyment from it, he decided to make a habit of hanging up on Okita once a week. At least.

It hadn't been the most productive phone conversation they'd ever had, but there were worse, and relatively speaking, this one was one of the good ones. At least Saitou now knew Jin'e hadn't been making crap up. It would have been nice if he'd been able to get a few names, but he could always get those later. Besides, even if he had the names, he was stuck out here in Suburban Hell, with no way to do any research. And that was Okita's job anyway right now.

So he sat back and lit his new cigarette and smoked quietly for a little while, until he started feeling a little restless and decided to call Tokio. He was actually surprised she hadn't called him yet, because he usually heard from her about three times by now if not more. He knew she'd been making nice with the reps from the historical societies, because she'd been calling him and telling him in minute detail how much she loathed making nice with them. Mostly, he tuned her out, only grunting occasionally in the appropriate places (he and Okita had perfected this technique back in high school, and it had never once failed them), and was grateful she called him to complain because it gave him something to do for a little while that wasn't sitting in a car with a guy he really didn't like, and it meant she didn't complain as much later when he saw her. And because that was the real benefit, he never said a cross word about it.

It took a while before she picked up, which had him curious:

"Hello?" she said, sounding harried and out of breath.

"Hey," he said. "Did you run to the phone or something?"

"Yeah, actually, I did," she admitted. "I heard it ringing from down the hall, and since Misao-san's on her lunch break, I had to run in here and answer before the caller hung up. Which would be you."

"Which would be me," he agreed. "How's it going?"

"Uhm…okay, I guess," she said and he heard her sigh. "The reps weren't too bad today."

"Anything?"

"Nothing," she said, and he heard the frown in her voice. "Not even a nibble. What about you?"

"Well, I've seen the same mutt wander by here twice now—I think he's wondering if he can get away with peeing on the tires—and two old women across the street have been watching the car for three days in a row now, so I'm pretty sure they're trying to decide whether or not to call the police on Himura and me. A lot of pedestrians've been giving us weird looks too. But other than that, nothing."

"Sounds more exciting than what's been going on over here," Tokio said, sounding amused.

"What's been going on over there?"

"Not much really," Tokio said nonchalantly. "One rep today. Another one's supposed to come tomorrow, and the last one's coming Saturday afternoon. Enishi and I are planning a staff meeting tomorrow after the museum closes, too. And I just got back from lunch—Shiori says 'hi,' by the way."

"Uh-huh," he returned.

"Have you eaten yet?"

"Himura left a while ago to get food."

"You guys waited too long," Tokio said authoritatively.

Saitou rolled his eyes but didn't say anything in reply.

"What time you getting out tonight?" he asked instead.

"Uhm…I dunno, really. Late," she said.

"Eight?"

"Maybe. Enishi and I're trying to prepare for the worst."

"The worst?"

"Yeah—no money from any of the historical societies."

"Yeah, that sounds like the worst," he agreed.

"Actually, the worst would have been getting no money from _anywhere_," she said. "We got a few loans from the banks, which means we no longer own our souls."

"You already gave away your soul, Chiisai," he chided with a grin.

"Yes, well, instead of my soul I had to agree to give them my first born child," she glibly returned.

"Did you now? Whatever will your husband say?"

"My imaginary husband who I don't have has no say—the banks are very insistent on payment."

For some reason that he didn't particularly care to pick apart, Saitou didn't really like this vein of conversation, so he asked,

"So if I were to show up around eight how long would it take for you to close up shop?"

"Hm—I guess you'll find out when you get here, won't you?" she replied, her smile in her voice.

He rolled his eyes, but decided not to say anything controversial on the subject, since he was enjoying being in her good graces again.

Saitou considered himself a smart man, and he'd listened very carefully to what Kamatari had had to say about how Tokio worked.

She was a lot screwier than he'd first thought.

She really had the weirdest coping system Saitou had ever heard of in his entire life, and he knew some deeply messed up individuals—he worked with fifty-two of them day in and day out. She had a whole list of topics that she did not discuss with anyone no matter what, and serious problems at work were number one on that list.

"You poked your nose where it didn't belong, and then kept sniffing around," Kamatari had informed him.

"Well why didn't she say something?" Saitou had irritably asked. "I would have stopped if she'd explained it to me."

"She would have, except you pissed her off when you wouldn't talk about your old job with the government," was the reply.

"Well what the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"It has nothing to do with it, except that in her mind, when you don't want to have a certain conversation, it doesn't happen, but she doesn't get the same privilege."

"She never said anything damn it!"

"Of course not—you're supposed to know that already," Kamatari said dryly.

"That's completely fucking illogical!" Saitou snapped after staring at the other man incredulously for a moment.

Kamatari spread his arms and smiled.

"Welcome to the magical world of Tokio, where reason is on permanent holiday and the irrational reigns supreme."

That was about the time Saitou realized his survival in "Takagi Tokio 101" depended on the complete and utter suspension of logic as he knew it.

And wouldn't you know it—as soon as he stopped trying to figure things out, it all got so much easier. He really should have tried this out a long time ago, he decided. It would have saved him a lot of grief. Plus he wouldn't have been so damn confused all the damn time….

Kamatari had patted his shoulder.

"That's the spirit," he'd said cheerfully.

Saitou sent Kamatari a flat look.

"Touch me again and die," he promised, and Kamatari sent him an indignant look.

"As if—you aren't my type," he returned with a self-important sniff.

"Keep it that way," Saitou shot back.

Kamatari rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Whatever," he muttered, before steering the conversation back towards Tokio.

He was informed that Tokio wouldn't tolerate any disparaging remarks about her family, especially her father ("I knew that one already," Saitou told Kamatari, who paused and eyed him. "Let me guess—trial-and-error?" he sweetly returned, and Saitou made a very rude gesture in reply), and that she was also quite protective of her friends. She was also a hopeless klutz, which Saitou found a little hard to believe.

"Believe it," Kamatari said. "Girl trips over thin air more than anyone else I've ever seen in my life."

"She's never done it in front of me," Saitou replied.

"Well of course not—tripping over nothing looks stupid, not attractive."

"So what, she can control it?"

"Sort of. If she's wearing heels, she's a lot more careful how she walks and moves around. The rest of the time, well, if you haven't got carpet at your place I'd think about investing in some rugs or something—less bruises that way."

Among her various eccentricities, Saitou learned that the catch-all phrase "and such" annoyed her.

"I still can't figure that one out," Kamatari said thoughtfully. "But she twitches like crazy when she hears it."

Saitou nodded slowly, forcing himself to not ask why in the name of all that was good and _sane_ she disliked that particular phrase. Besides, Kamatari had just said he didn't know the why behind that one, so it was pointless to ask.

He was also instructed never to tell her to stop biting her nails if he noticed her doing it, because that was a sign she was nervous or thinking or both, and if you interrupted her things had the potential to get very ugly very quickly.

The most important thing he learned, though, was the "Candy Breakdown," as Kamatari called it.

"When she's really really upset, or you've really really fucked up big time, you have to get her caramels," Kamatari said.

"Why caramels?"

"I don't know now shut up and take notes because this is important. Now, when she's only feeling a little bit upset or stressed out, she likes butterscotch or jelly beans. To decide which one she's most in the mood for, take into consideration the mood she's in—if she's stressed out, it's butterscotch. If she's a little upset, it's jelly beans."

"Why?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.

"The butterscotch is hard candy and the chewing is something constructive that she can put the extra energy into. And the jelly beans—come on, it's jelly beans. Who wouldn't get happy if you gave them jelly beans?" Kamatari paused and considered Saitou. "Aside from you, of course," he added dryly.

"I will shoot you, you know," Saitou said.

"No you won't," Kamatari replied, secure in that surety. "I have valuable information you need, and you wouldn't risk it. Now, chocolate is weird. She has to be in the mood for it, and that doesn't happen very often. Your best bet is to let her get the chocolate, because she doesn't have a favorite or anything. It really all depends on how she's feeling. You can get her gummy bears or gum drops whenever—good brownie points.

"She loves pralines—get her those on White Day." Kamatari added. "It's the only day she'll accept them without putting up a fuss, because they can get expensive."

"Pralines?" Saitou asked, raising an eyebrow. "They're not that—"

"They are if you get them from that confectionary in Ginza she likes so much," Kamatari interrupted pointedly, and Saitou rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Right," he dutifully if resignedly said.

Kamatari hadn't been kidding about that candy store, either; he'd nearly had a heart attack when he'd had to pay for the caramels he'd bought as peace offering. His only consolation was that it had worked.

And that he'd stocked up on a lot of instant soba beforehand by luck.

Saitou saw Kenshin coming back out of the corner of his eye and frowned—the hell he'd let himself get caught talking to Tokio.

"I gotta go, it's about time to call in," he said, which was true. Sort of.

"Okay—I think I should be done around eight, so come by then, okay?"

"Yeah."

"All right—'bye."

"Later."

He ended the call with time to spare, and patted himself on the back (not literally, because that was stupid and also a little uncomfortable) for noticing Kenshin before it was too late. Then, he decided to call in and make his report ("We got nothin'. Again. For the fourth day in a row.") and Kenshin reached the car as he was pretending to listen to what the fellow at the other end was saying. When he hung up, the redhead handed Saitou his lunch—soba, of course.

"Are we going to be here tomorrow too?" Kenshin asked.

"Of course we are," Saitou muttered. "We're going to be engaging in this little exercise in stupidity for as long as it takes to catch Dumb and Dumber, Wu or all three."

Kenshin frowned.

"He's not going to set foot near here," he said.

"Of course not," Saitou agreed. "But there's always the faint hope that he'll suddenly revert to idiocy and crawl out of whatever hole he's hiding in to come back here."

Kenshin snorted, frowning.

"Perhaps," he allowed, tone dubious.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio informed him in no uncertain terms that evening that she wasn't going to eat soba for dinner _again_, and took it upon herself to make something with the meager supplies in his pantry and fridge. Saitou didn't really get a say in the matter, so he kept his peace and did what she told him to do.

They were nearly through eating when someone knocked at his door.

"Expecting someone?" Tokio asked, a little surprised and amused by the way he was frowning in the direction of the door.

"No one but you," he muttered, getting up and going to the door.

When he yanked it open and saw who his visitor was, his annoyance was replaced by surprise.

"Senpai!" he said.

"Yo," a male voice greeted easily. "Got your copy."

"Yeah, come in," Saitou said, stepping back and letting the man in.

He was much smaller than Saitou—Tokio put him at around Kenshin's height—with reddish hair and brown eyes. He was wearing old jeans and a faded button-down shirt under his jacket, which Saitou took from him and hung on the back of one of the chairs at the table.

When the man saw Tokio, he paused and blinked, obviously surprised, then looked over at Saitou.

"I'm sorry Hajime-kun, I didn't know you had company."

"I don't mind," Tokio quickly assured him, curious—why had Saitou called him "Senpai"? Was this man an officer too? "Have you eaten? We were just finishing up, but there's still some food if you're hungry."

Saitou raised an eyebrow and sent her a look that clearly asked when she'd gotten so comfortable in his home; Tokio ignored him, all her attention focused on the short man before her, who was blinking in surprise.

"Uh…I guess I could have—"

"Good!" Tokio cheerfully interrupted, clasping her hands together and smiling widely. "Sit down, I'll get you a plate."

"Uh, okay. Thanks…?"

"Takagi Tokio," she quickly supplied with a bow.

The man raised his eyebrows and sent Saitou a speaking look that made the taller man glare at him and…was he…_blushing_?

"Takagi, huh?" the man asked. "Any relation to Takagi Kojuro over in Nerima Ward?"

"He's my father," Tokio affirmed with a nod, and for some reason this seemed to amuse Saitou's guest even more, if the widening of his smile was any indication.

"Classic," he announced with a chuckle.

"Shut up," Saitou snapped, and that only made the other man laugh.

Tokio padded into the kitchen to get the man's food, and he sat down at the table, one very disgruntled Saitou joining him.

"And you are?" Tokio prompted, deciding that she needed to get this guy to stop laughing before Saitou came over the table after him and shoved a chopstick in a very uncomfortable place.

"Ah, that was rude, I'm sorry. Name's Nagakura Shinpachi," the short man said with a lopsided grin of apology in her direction.

"Nice to meet you," she politely returned, sliding his plate into the microwave and setting it to heat.

Shinpachi's grin widened.

"Aw, she's cute." He looked over at Saitou, grin becoming decidedly evil. "So how much are you payin' her to pretend to be your girlfriend, Hajime-kun?"

Saitou, who'd gone back to his meal, promptly choked, and Shinpachi let out a roar of laughter while Tokio rolled her eyes and got him a glass of water.

"The hell is wrong with you!" Saitou demanded hoarsely when he could talk again.

"I was just wonderin'," Shinpachi innocently returned, smiling widely.

"Fucker," Saitou muttered, glaring at him.

"Hajime," Tokio murmured, frowning.

"He started it," Saitou immediately replied, and Tokio sent him a flat look. He glared at her in return.

Shinpachi coughed into his fist, amused.

The microwave soon relinquished a plate with hot food, and Tokio set it down in front of Shinpachi, then daintily vaulted up onto the counter, close enough to comfortably carry on a conversation with him, before Saitou could offer up his own seat.

"Do you work with Hajime?" she asked as Shinpachi dug into the food with relish.

He shook his head, mouth full.

"Used to," he replied after swallowing.

"You're retired? So young?" she asked, surprised, and Shinpachi paused and sent her a pleased grin.

"I wasn't MPD like Hajime-kun over there," he said, gesturing to Saitou, who was still sending him baleful looks. "That was before he joined up with that outfit."

"Befo…oh," Tokio said, realizing what he meant, and Shinpachi froze, his gaze on her and then going to Saitou. His face was deathly serious for the first time since he'd arrived.

"Know about that?" he asked in a deceptively mild voice.

"Only that Hajime used to work for the government," Tokio said, and Shinpachi eyed her, gaze considering, for several long moments, before Saitou quietly said,

"She doesn't know anything more than that, Senpai."

There was a long pause, and then Shinpachi suddenly smiled at Tokio again.

"Yeah, well, anyway, we used to work together. Me, him and Sou-kun. And Sano, of course."

"'Sou-kun'?" she repeated, puzzled.

"Souji," Saitou qualified. "And speaking of Harada, how is the great idiot?"

"Fine. He was gonna come with me to visit, but his kid's sick so he took a rain check."

"That was opportune," Saitou dryly said, and Shinpachi chuckled.

"And he says I'm a fucker," he said, amused. "How's Sou-kun?"

"Annoying."

"Glad to hear that. So you haven't killed him yet, eh?"

"He's quite fast, but I'm getting closer."

"Baby steps?" Shinpachi asked, grinning.

Saitou smirked.

"Baby steps." he agreed.

Shinpachi shook his head, chuckling, then seemed to think of something and grinning asked,

"Is he still listening to that god-awful music he likes so much?"

The long-suffering expression on Saitou's face was answer enough, and Shinpachi started laughing again.

Shinpachi wolfed down his food and praised Tokio on her cooking.

"How'd you know it was me?" she asked, a little amused by the man's antics.

"Chuckles over there doesn't know how to make anything but soba," he said, jerking his thumb in Saitou's direction.

"I'll break that thumb Senpai," Saitou blandly informed him.

"You can try," Shinpachi replied with good humor, but there was a thread of steel in his tone that Tokio caught. It was faint, but definitely there.

Once the plates had been stacked in the sink, Tokio returned to her perch on the counter, and that was when she noticed the bag Shinpachi had arrived with.

"Did you bring Hajime something?" she asked. "I remember you saying you had a copy of something for him when you first got here."

"Ah right," Shinpachi said, smiling faintly. He winked at Saitou. "Cute cook with a good memory—she musta cost a fortune, eh Hajime-kun?"

"Damn it Nagakura," Saitou snapped.

"Aw calm down," Shinpachi ordered with a dismissive wave of his hand as he leaned over and grabbed the bag. He handed Saitou the bag. "Geez, you'll give yourself a heart attack, and upset Cutie Pie over there."

"Her name is Tokio," Saitou chillingly informed him, and Tokio rolled her eyes.

_Men are **so** dumb_, she silently thought, shaking her head.

"Hajime," Tokio said, getting Saitou's attention. "Just open Nagakura-san's gift."

"Ah ah ah—I insist you call me Shin-chan, Cutie Pie," Shinpachi said with a wink in her direction, just to piss off Saitou.

Which was working beautifully, by the way.

"If I toss you out on your ass she won't have to call you anything," Saitou returned, eyes glinting in a manner that did not bode well for the smaller man.

"Hajime, the bag," Tokio prompted, hoping she wouldn't have to tackle him, because the odds were against her actually having any effect on him. Then again the surprise of having her throw herself on him might be enough to stop him.

Saitou accepted the bag, muttering under his breath (Tokio was really glad she couldn't hear what he was saying, because she was reasonably sure it would gross her out or horrify her or both), and opened it and reached in and produced a hardcover book.

"First edition, signed and everything of course so that you can one day sell it off like the rest of them and become a rich, cranky bastard, 'stead of just a cranky bastard," Shinpachi said, grinning.

Saitou grunted and flipped the cover open with his index finger to read the blurb on the jacket. And that was when Tokio noticed the author name: Sugimura Yoshie.

It took a moment for the name to register, but when it did her brain promptly stopped working and she could only sit and stare at Shinpachi in open-mouthed shock.

"Senpai" was the most prolific and best-selling author in Japan.

"You-you're-but-I—" she squeaked, and Saitou and Shinpachi watched her in expectant silence, sort of confused by her reaction until Shinpachi realized what had happened and smiled.

"Hajime-kun, you're evil—you didn't tell adorable little Cutie Pie you're friends with the famous novelist Sugimura Yoshie?"

She hadn't thought it was possible for her eyes to get bigger. Oh well—so much for that idea.

"What the hell did I just tell you about that, damn it?" Saitou snapped.

"Aw cool it ya great idiot," Shinpachi shot back. "You never could take a joke or two about your women."

If her brain had been working, that statement might have intrigued Tokio. But her brain was still out to lunch (or rather, dinner, what with the hour and all), so all she said was,

"How in the—what—I—but—how did—"

Shinpachi watched her, lips pursed, then looked over at Saitou.

"Is steam gonna come out of her ears if she keeps doing that? 'Cause it looks like she's overheating."

"I need a beer," Tokio said dazedly, slipping off the counter and starting for the fridge.

"Like hell," Saitou said quickly, getting up and snagging her by the wrist. "Night always ends with a fight when you drink. C'mere, sit down."

And then he yanked her down into his lap.

All of a sudden her brain was in and working again.

"Hajime!" she yelped, blushing furiously and slapping at his hands—the crafty bastard had her by the waist.

"Just sit an' shut up," Saitou advised, while Tokio fumed in embarrassment and Shinpachi openly laughed at the two of them.

Once he'd stopped, Saitou said,

"Senpai's just bein' an asshole, don't mind him."

"I can't believe you're friends with the most successful Japanese author…like, ever," Tokio said, shaking her head, and Shinpachi grinned.

"Wild, right?" he asked. "After I quit my old job I started doin' this. Just for fun, you know? But apparently people like conspiracy theories a lot." He grinned suddenly, watching her. "Oi, Tokio-chan, you read any of my books?"

"Not all of them," Tokio admitted shyly, and Shinpachi chuckled.

"She's got good taste Hajime-kun, you should keep her around."

Saitou only rolled his eyes and didn't bother dignifying the advice with a response.

"My brother's a big fan, but it's hard for him to find your earlier stuff," Tokio said.

"Yeah, I keep complainin' to my publishing house about that, but they're lazy bastards," Shinpachi said. "I'm thinkin' a gettin' my editor to light a fire under their asses, since my bitchin' ain't doin' squat." He grinned at Saitou. "Aren't you glad I'm such a good friend and I give you copies of my books, Hajime-kun? Aren't you glad you don't know the pain of not being able to find my shit?"

Tokio sent Saitou a narrow-eyed look.

"You have all Nagakura-san's novels?" she asked.

"Yeah, he always gives us copies," Saitou said.

"Where?" Tokio demanded.

"Oh man," Shinpachi said, sounding surprised. "You haven't even seen his bedroom yet?"

That was all the information Tokio needed: she managed to wiggle out of Saitou's grasp (after she elbowed him in the side), and marched over to his bedroom door, opened it and went in. A few seconds later, the two men heard Tokio shout,

"You creep I can't believe you didn't tell me you had these!"

Shinpachi laughed; Saitou glared at him and rubbed the spot she'd hit, silently deciding he was going to have to watch her elbows from now on too. They were damn sharp.

"So how long's this been going on?" Shinpachi asked, genuinely curious.

"Technically? Eight years," Saitou replied. "Her actually being here didn't start until a week ago or so."

"She's short," Shinpachi said.

"Yeah."

"Weird."

Saitou frowned.

"Why?"

"You never go for short women. Like Yaso-chan—she was tall. For a chick, anyway. _You're_ a freak of nature."

"Says the hobbit," Saitou dryly replied, and Shinpachi lazily flipped him off.

"So what took you so long?"

"None of your business."

"Were you shy, Hajime-kun?"

"You know, I'm really glad I only see you once a year," Saitou commented, and Shinpachi grinned.

"Aw, don't talk bull, you miss havin' me and Sano around. And Heisuke."

"How's he?"

"Heisuke is Heisuke," Shinpachi replied with a wry grin.

"Still a pervert, huh?" Saitou asked, and Shinpachi only grinned widely in reply.

"Oi, Tokio-chan said you had beer," Shinpachi remarked. "That true? I could use one."

Saitou smiled faintly, but got up and went to the fridge and grabbed two, throwing one over his shoulder in Shinpachi's direction; Shinpachi casually swiped it and set it on the table to wait for it to settle.

"How's the wife?" Saitou asked, sitting down.

"She's good," Shinpachi replied smiling, obviously pleased that he'd remembered. "Kids too."

"What about Oiso?"

Shinpachi's smile was much sadder now.

"She's all grown up, man," he said with a laugh. "It's weird. I thought about going to get her and bring her to live with me when I married Ritsuko, but I just decided to leave her with Kotsune's sister. She's happy there, and I still see her every summer when I visit."

"What's she, thirteen now?"

"No way, fucker!" Shinpachi looked offended. "She's eleven, thank you very much!"

Saitou sent him an incredulous look.

"You just said she was all grown up, ahou. How is eleven-years-old all grown up?"

"She's mature for her age."

Saitou rolled his eyes.

"Whatever," he muttered, popping the tab on his beer open.

"She wants to be an actress," Shinpachi said proudly. "She's good too—she won the lead part in her school play."

Saitou had never met Shinpachi's daughter, and he'd seen her only in pictures the other man had showed off. But that little girl was a big part of the reason Shinpachi had quit as abruptly as he had. One morning he'd awakened and had an epiphany—what the hell, he'd asked himself, was he doing playing spy? He had a _daughter_. That coupled with Kotsune's death not long after the girl's birth, and Shinpachi's inability to get leave to at least attend her funeral, had stolen much of the allure of the job from the older man.

Tokio came out of his bedroom and dispelled the sort of heavy mood that had descended on them, seven books in her arms.

"Oi, what the hell?" Saitou demanded when he saw her.

Tokio glared at him.

"I'm borrowing them," she announced, and Shinpachi snickered into his lap.

"No, you're _stealing_ them," Saitou corrected.

"I'm not stealing them," she argued. "Because if I was stealing them, you wouldn't have known I was taking them until you went into your room later and saw them missing. Stealing is when you sneak them away."

"Did you ask to borrow them?"

"No," Tokio answered, and had the gall not to look embarrassed. "But I'm being very courteous by letting you know, now aren't I? Especially since you didn't bother to mention you had a complete collection of Nagakura-san's books. Frankly, you deserve to have them stolen for that."

Shinpachi threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh man Hajime-kun, I really hope you keep her!"

Saitou sent him a flat look.

_**So** glad I only see him once a year_, he thought sourly.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Shinpachi left an hour later, and Saitou saw him out, then went back to the living room, where the three of them had retired after Tokio had emerged holding his books hostage. When he returned, he was not at all surprised to see her laying on her stomach on the floor reading one of the books.

At least she'd waited for Shinpachi to leave before she started ignoring him. That was something.

He guessed.

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable on the couch?" he asked leaning a shoulder against the door jamb, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his slacks; he'd long since given up on trying to make her relinquish the books.

"Floor's fine," she murmured.

He sighed and shook his head, then walked in and plopped down next to her.

"Which one's that one?"

"_The Recruits_," she said, turning a page and starting on the next one.

It was quiet for a moment, and then Tokio turned her head and looked up at him, face thoughtful and considering.

"What?" he asked.

"Nagakura-san's books…how much of them are based on what you all used to do for the government?"

He really should have been expecting that question, but for some reason it surprised him, and he blinked and stared at her for a moment, collecting himself.

"What, like a percent?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

"I guess…maybe seventy to eighty percent. Senpai can get away with it because he changes names and dates and embellishes just enough that the government can't touch him." More than once, Saitou had reflected that it was Shinpachi's way of flipping his old bosses one really big, defiant finger.

She pursed her lips. "Huh," she said finally. Pause. "So…the characters…are they based on all you guys?"

He nodded.

"Who's who?"

Saitou took the book from her and scanned the pages, until he found what he wanted.

"Matsumae Eiji is Senpai," Saitou said, pointing to the name in the book so she could see it. "Fujiwara Kaneyoshi is Souji. Hagiwara Makoto is Harada. Yamamoto Akio is Heisuke. Toudou Heisuke—he's another one who used to work with us. Together with Senpai and Harada, we used to call them the Comedian Trio."

"Which one are you?" she asked, and he raised an eyebrow.

"What makes you think I'm here?"

"Why else would Nagakura-san give you signed copies?" she replied, and he smirked faintly and pointed out one last name.

"Fujita Goro," he said, tapping the name.

Tokio cocked her head, looking down at the name, then looked up at him and grinned.

"You're famous," she said cheerfully, and he snorted.

"Hardly," he muttered, handing the book back to her.

"Well you are," she said mildly.

"I'm not Fujita Goro," he pointed out.

"In Nagakura-san's books you are," she replied, then held the book back out to him. "Read it to me."

He stared at her.

"Huh?" he finally decided on.

"Read it to me," she repeated, impatiently waving the book at him.

"Why?"

"Because," she said, and he waited.

"Because why?" he prompted finally when it became obvious that she wasn't going to answer.

She blushed, which only made him curious.

"Because," she insisted.

"That's not an answer Chiisai," he replied. "Now if you don't give me a real one, I'm going to take that book and all the other books you've stolen from me and I'm going to hide them."

She pouted at him, still blushing.

"Fine," she muttered. "But you're a jerk, for the record."

"I can live with that," he assured her. "Now why?"

It took another five minutes to get the answer out of her, because she kept mumbling. In the end, though, he learned that apparently, she liked the sound of his voice. And, since the book she wanted him to read was sort of about him, she wanted to hear him read it.

Really. If she got any cuter he might have to commit seppuku to regain a measure of dignity.

"Yeah, okay, I'll read it," he said, taking the book and acting like it was a chore, but he was actually quite pleased with it.

_I'm a card-carrying member of the Dark Side_, he thought resignedly as she settled herself into his side, head on his shoulder. _It only took a week, too._

He opened to the page she'd been on, but she stopped him:

"Read from the beginning," she said. "Please," she added after a second.

So he obliged her and flipped to the first page of the first chapter.

"'It started in late August, when they were all gathered for their weekly game and griping about not having enough money….'"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 18: There's Treachery Afoot!:_

Kenshin snorted.

"How generous of you," he muttered.

"I do try," Saitou said, just to be annoying.

---

"Aw, that's not nice. We missed you."

"No we didn't," Saitou said.

"Okay, _I_ missed you," Okita corrected.

---

"You said she'd ruin me," Tokio reminded him.

"No, I said she'd have a hand in the End of Days, and as such it probably wasn't a good idea to have her around."

Tokio shrugged. "I paraphrased it." she said, and Saitou snorted.

---

"The humanitarian side of him sometimes gets drowned out by the serial killer part," Okita blithely said. He grinned broadly. "Remember?"

* * *

**Additional A/N:** I fixed a few errors and added a couple definitions/notes that I'd forgotten, the re-posted this one. Which could make this chapter the one with the fewest mistakes of the lot. (sigh) So sad, so sad…. 


	18. There's Treachery Afoot!

**_GRRRRR_. Just Frickin' _GRRRRR_.** I am not happy with FFdotNet. And that's all I'll say on the subject, because if I say more, this will become the longest A/N in the history of A/Ns, and it will also have nothing to do with the actual story in any way. So I'm going to restrain myself, and hope my head doesn't explode.

Anyway. This week I have a (**very**) late Thanksgiving treat: a double shot of Miserable! That's right, you don't have to stop at one chapter this week, ya get two. Because despite the fact the FFdotNet screws me over dirty rather consistently these days, I'm feelin' festive—Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. And how I'm not morbidly obese yet, I have no idea. So have fun and enjoy!

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

shinobi: anyone who watches _Naruto_, I imagine, should be familiar with this one; means ninja, specifically male ninja, since female ninja have a separate term.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Copspeak: I have no idea what cop lingo, if any, Japanese cops use, so I've used American cop lingo. Not a lot, don't worry, but since I know a lot of cops it sort of slipped in when I wasn't looking. In order of appearance, the lineup consists of: "B&E"—breaking and entering; "in progress"—happening now/in real time; "lockup"—temporary holding facility within the district station; and "booked"—to formally gather information after an arrest, including fingerprints and mug shots/photographs. "MO" also appears, but I don't really think I have to explain that one. Do I?

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Eighteen: There's Treachery Afoot!_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Can we go yet?" Kenshin asked, sounding weary and just a smidge impatient.

Saitou, who was balancing a pencil on his nose, blandly asked,

"Is it five-thirty yet?"

"No."

"Then that's your answer."

Kenshin sighed, his impatience in full evidence now.

"This is idiotic," he muttered. "He's not coming back here."

"We know."

"So why are we here then?"

"Because Wu's something of an idiot."

"Idiot savant, you mean," Kenshin muttered in bad temper, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping down in his seat.

"Anyone who hires Dumb and Dumber to do _anything_ for him is an idiot," Saitou said with some authority, ignoring Kenshin's remark.

"Then what does that make the staff at the museum?" Kenshin snapped.

"Wu's the one that hired the Hirumas," Saitou replied, bored.

"Tokio-dono hired Wu."

"Everyone is entitled to a moment of bad judgment."

Kenshin snorted.

"How generous of you," he muttered.

"I do try," Saitou said, just to be annoying.

Before the back-and-forth could become a full-blown argument, the radio crackled to life:

"Saitou-san, you guys there still?"

Saitou reached over and grabbed the handset.

"Talk to me," he said, still balancing the pencil.

"B&E in progress at the suspect's house."

Saitou's head snapped up in surprise, the pencil falling to his lap; Kenshin stared at the radio, eyes huge and mouth agape.

"What?" Saitou asked sharply.

"Someone just broke into the suspect's house," the officer on the other end repeated. "We saw it—whoever it is used the back way."

There was a long pause, and then Saitou said,

"All right, Himura and I're going in."

"Yes sir."

Saitou tossed the handset onto the dashboard and smirked at Kenshin:

"And you thought this was a waste of time," he said with a sneer.

"Oh shut up," Kenshin snapped irritably, frowning.

They left the car, quickly walked across the street and made their way to the back entrance. Once away from the street, they pulled out their semi-automatics and cautiously made their way in, methodically checking the whole first floor before heading upstairs, Kenshin in the lead. They followed the sounds of someone muttering and several odd bumping noises (which were followed by some very inventive curses; Saitou mentally filed away three he decided he liked for their ingenuity) to Wu's bedroom.

Kenshin pressed himself against the wall on the left side of the door, Saitou against the right, and Saitou silently ticked off three seconds before giving Kenshin a curt nod. The redhead returned it with one of his own, then kicked the slightly ajar door open and ordered,

"Hands up now!"

The burglar's arms were immediately up in the air, his back to Saitou and Kenshin. Saitou's eyes narrowed when he realized there was something sort of familiar about the man, and it took him a few seconds to figure out why. When he did, he smirked widely:

"Why hello Chou," he drawled, almost pleasantly, and at that the man froze, then slowly looked over his shoulder.

When he saw Saitou, his eyes widened in horror.

"Oh shit," he said.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Saitou strolled into the observation room, Okita glanced over his shoulder.

"What've we got?" Saitou asked.

"Broom Head ain't talkin'," Okita informed him, and Saitou rolled his eyes.

"Figures he'd be difficult," he muttered. He walked up to the window, hands in his pockets and cigarette dangling out of his mouth, and watched Kenshin fruitlessly question the blonde punk for several minutes in silence, then turned to the young man overseeing the video and sound recorders.

"Turn everything off," he ordered, and the young man blinked.

"Sir?" he asked, obviously confused by the order.

"Do what he says," Okita said cheerfully, with a smile. "It's okay."

The young man was dubious, but no one argued with the Wolf of Bunkyo Ward, so he did what he was told. Saitou glanced over to make sure everything was off, then entered the interrogation room, Okita behind him. Before shutting the door, Okita poked his head back into the observation room and winked at the kid:

"No turnin' it back on 'til we say so, okay?"

"Yes sir," the young man said quickly.

Okita grinned widely.

"Good man," he said in obvious approval, then left.

"Chou-kun Chou-kun," Okita said as he strolled over to the other seat beside Kenshin and plopped down. "We haven't seen you in _so_ long—takes you back, doesn't it?" he added, gesturing to the room in general.

Chou sneered, slumped down in his seat, his cuffed wrists on the table before him.

"Yeah right," he spat.

Okita feigned hurt.

"Aw, that's not nice. We missed you."

"No we didn't," Saitou said.

"Okay, _I_ missed you," Okita corrected.

"I hear you're being difficult," Saitou said, taking his cigarette out of his mouth. "Is that true, Chou?"

"What am I, four?" Chou snapped.

"Four-year-olds have more sense," Saitou coolly returned.

The blonde man bristled.

"Friggin' asshole," he muttered.

"This'll be much easier on you if you cooperate," Kenshin pointed out.

"I ain't sayin' nothin'," Chou returned haughtily.

Saitou grinned.

"Really?" he inquired, and Chou sent him a wary look. "Chou, you really have been away for too long if you think we can't make you sing."

"Like an angel, I might add," Okita said with a lazy smile that was suddenly very threatening.

"You guys can't do shit to me," Chou said, but he didn't look like he believed it. "It's police brutality if you do."

"Police brutality?" Saitou asked. "Oh no, I think if you think back very hard, you'll remember that you got into a fight with some other low life in lockup. And naturally, well, Okita-kun and I had to separate the two of you."

"Naturally," Okita drawled with a dignified nod of his head. "Really oughta work on that temper, Chou-kun."

Chou's eyes went to Kenshin, who was watching him with a placid expression on his face.

"What about you?" he asked warily.

Kenshin blinked with exaggerated slowness, eyes innocent.

"Oh, this one wasn't even here—this one went home after leaving you in Saitou's capable hands to be booked."

There was a long pause while the three men allowed Chou to process this, and then Saitou dryly asked,

"Well Chou? We gonna do this the hard way or the easy way?"

"It's all the same to us," Okita added. "We'll beat it outta you if we have to. You know we will Chou."

The man didn't reply, his eyes darting from Kenshin to Okita to Saitou. Saitou nodded and came up off the wall.

"Go tell the kid in the other room to get lost," he said, unbuttoning the cuffs of his sleeves and beginning to roll them up as he walked over to Chou. "We don't need him anymore."

Okita nodded and rose to do his bidding, and Kenshin got up to come around to Chou's side.

"Wait—WAIT!" Chou yelped, voice panicked. "I never said no, you assholes!"

"Does that mean you want to cooperate?" Kenshin asked, one eyebrow raised.

Chou sent him a bitter look.

"Whaddaya wanna know?" he grudgingly asked, and Saitou smirked.

"He's seen the light," he said wryly.

"Another soul saved," Okita remarked with a grin, sauntering back to the table and sitting down.

"Well?" Chou impatiently demanded, and Saitou kicked the back leg of Chou's chair in warning.

"Be civil," he advised. "What were you doing at Wu Heishin's house?"

"Who?" Chou asked, confused.

"Wu Heishin lives in the house you broke into," Kenshin informed him. "What were you doing there?"

"Two guys hired me to get something from there," Chou said. "A tall guy and a short fat guy."

"Names," Saitou said. "None of that 'tall guy fat guy' shit."

"I don't know their names," Chou snapped irritably.

"Aw come on Chou-kun, you know that don't fly with us," Okita said. "Remember who you're dealin' with, kid."

"I don't know," Chou insisted.

Saitou idly cracked his knuckles.

"Maybe you forgot," he suggested. "Like some help remembering?"

Chou sent him a wary look.

"I swear I don't know," he said. "Honest—I'm not shittin' you guys."

"You expect us to believe you took a job and didn't get a name?" Kenshin asked, sounding mildly incredulous. "Just how stupid do you think we are, Chou?"

"He just needs his memory nudged," Saitou said, taking his cigarette out of his mouth and flicking it onto the floor. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck in a lazy sort of way that had Chou getting visibly nervous.

"It was somethin' with a K!" he yelped, wide eyes on Saitou.

"What else?" Saitou prompted. "You gotta gimme more than that if you want to save yourself from the ass-kicking I'm going to give you."

"It was—Ko—Ku—Ki—Kihei!" Chou said at long last, looking so relieved the three officers were pretty sure he was going to start crying in another few minutes. "It was Kihei! He was the short fat guy!"

"That's better," Kenshin said with a nod.

"If this keeps up you'll get a sucker," Okita promised with a smirk, and Chou glared at him.

"Fuck you," the blonde snarled.

"I don't swing that way, but thanks, I appreciate the compliment," Okita immediately replied. He winked at Chou. "Nice to know my attempts at keeping my boyish figure're workin'."

Chou recoiled, looking horrified; Saitou rolled his eyes, impatience palpable.

"You need to get your priorities straightened out, dumb ass," he snapped. "You're more worried about someone sitting across the table from you than of someone standing right over you, someone who is very quickly becoming impatient with your shit and is getting really close to breaking off fingers. Now what did Kihei want you to get?"

"He wanted me to go get somethin' outta some safe at that house," Chou said meekly, watching Saitou with wary eyes that were pleading that the officer not hurt him. "He said it was in one a the upstairs rooms, said he wanted me t' go in, find the safe, grab whatever was in there and take it to 'im."

Okita and Kenshin exchanged intrigued looks; Saitou's eyes narrowed; Chou paled.

"He didn't say what was in the safe?" Saitou asked.

"Naw—jus' told me t' get it."

"Whaddaya think?" Okita asked, watching Saitou.

The amber-eyed man watched Chou in silence for some time, thinking, then said,

"We're gonna make a little deal, you and I, Chou."

"D…deal?" Chou asked cautiously, eyes darting from Saitou to Kenshin and Okita before going back to the man looming over him.

"That's right," Saitou said. "You're going to help me, and I'm going to help you."

Chou swallowed, suspicious.

"You're gonna help me?" he asked, sounding very skeptical.

"That's right." Saitou replied with a faint smirk.

"Despite what you think, Chou-kun, Saitou-san is actually a humanitarian, deep down inside," Okita said wryly. Pause. "And also something of a sociopath, but I think the humanitarian part overshadows that sometimes, right Himura?"

"Sometimes," Kenshin agreed with a nonchalant nod.

"We're going to take you back to Wu's house and you're going to get into the safe and you're going to grab whatever it is that's in there and give it to me," Saitou instructed. "And once I've looked it over, I'm going to give it back to you, and you're going to give it to Kihei."

Chou stared at him.

"You want me t' work for _you guys_?" he asked, incredulous, after several moments. "Are you fuckin' _kidding_ me?!?"

"Saitou-san doesn't joke, Chou-kun," Okita informed him with authority. "You need a sense of humor for that."

"You either do what I tell you or I throw your ass back in lockup, you little shit," Saitou barked. "And you haven't got a fucking prayer of making bail, either, so you'll be with us for a good while! You talked your way out of doing time twice already but you're dreaming if you think I'll let you get out of it three times."

"Best not to make him mad, Chou," Kenshin quietly advised. "Saitou doesn't make many deals with criminals."

"Happens every other ice age," Okita affirmed. "So when he offers to do somethin' for you, you gotta jump fast—they're what you call 'time-sensitive' offers."

Chou considered Okita and Kenshin in silence for some time, then looked up at Saitou.

"Wha' do I get if I do this?"

"Reduced jail term," Saitou immediately said, and Chou's eyes almost fell out of his head.

"WHAT?!?" he shouted. "Fuck you! I thought—"

"You didn't honestly believe I'd let you walk, did you?" Saitou interrupted, one eyebrow raised. "You know me better than that, Chou."

"Yeah—fuckin' hard-ass to the end," Chou muttered bitterly.

"It's either reduced jail time or the full term, Chou-kun," Okita said. "If I was you, I'd take Saitou-san up on the offer—he nurses a grudge like you'd never believe, and he's awful upset with you for getting away from him two other times. You ain't gonna get out of this one, I can promise you that. No matter what fancy lawyer you get this time."

Chou glared up at Saitou, who raised an eyebrow, gaze cool and waiting. Chou dropped his gaze to the table top and glared down at it, furious.

"Deal," he snarled.

Saitou smirked.

"Heh—you're smarter than you look, Broom Head. Get his personals, we're taking him back." he said to Kenshin, who nodded, and Saitou and Okita left the interrogation room.

"You think we can trust him?" Okita asked.

"He's not stupid enough to think he can double-cross me and live for very long," Saitou replied. "The department hasn't been out of commission that long, remember—they still have stories circulating about all of us."

Okita grinned.

"Heh—so we're scary stories for criminals to tell in the dark?" he asked, looking very cheered by the thought.

Saitou's smirk widened.

"Oh, something like that," he said.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"I'm not unreasonable, or at least I'd like to think that that's true," Tokio said at the start of the staff meeting, pacing back and forth behind the chair she was supposed to be sitting in, like everyone else. And for all of half a second, she had been able to sit down calmly. And then her nerves had spoken up and demanded that she do something constructive or they were going to very strongly insist on doing something _de_structive, and Tokio knew better than to allow her nerves to totally take over.

She'd filled her monthly freak-out quota last week, thanks very much.

Actually, she was a lot calmer this week than she'd been last week. For one thing, while she and Saitou still had their obligatory fights, they hadn't gotten into another blow-out. He'd figured out, apparently, that she didn't want to talk shop with him and left it alone, and for that she was grateful. Perhaps it was a little abnormal (or perhaps it was very abnormal), but Tokio had gotten used to getting into dumb little arguments with Saitou. It was their routine, and it made her feel better.

Yep, that was definitely abnormal.

But, as it was, that was the only good news she'd gotten; Katsura was still doing battle with the insurance company, who had quit being polite and were now telling them flat out that they'd screwed up and needed to file the claim again. And Tokio and Katsura had bluntly refused, saying they weren't going to cover the insurance company's ass, so they had better look again because they weren't going to fill out another form until there was actual, factual proof that Tokio had messed up on the claim. She was fervently glad Katsura was backing her up on this one, not that she'd really thought he wouldn't. But it was nice to know that power (not to mention that katana, should it come to that) was in her corner. So maybe that _was_ sort of good news.

So all in all, Tokio was feeling better. Not a lot, mind you, but some. She might yet escape this ordeal without an ulcer.

Currently, Kamatari, Anji, Enishi, Misao, Takeda from security, Sasaki (who was in charge of the assistants), Tomoe's secretary Ren, and Nakajima and his assistant curator Kurosagi were seated around the table, watching her pace back and forth. When Nakajima had walked in, Misao and Enishi both had had to restrain her from pouncing on the bastard and slamming his head against the conference table—Tokio had not forgotten about the assistants' freak-out on Sunday, or who had been behind it. Since she couldn't physically hurt him, she'd had to settle for taking shots at his over-inflated sense of worth, which was why she'd specifically asked for his assistant to attend the staff meeting. Kurosagi had never sat in on one in the six and a half years he'd been working at the museum; he'd always been welcome to join, but had always declined, since it seemed a little redundant to have both the head curator and the assistant curator at the same meeting. But Tokio had walked right up to Kurosagi—in front of Nakajima—and told him she expected to see him at the staff meeting, no ifs, ands or buts about it, and Kurosagi was too scared of her to not attend. He was also pretty scared of Nakajima, but apparently Tokio terrified him more—possibly because he knew she wouldn't hesitate to fire him if he gave her any reason to; she'd done it more than a few times in the past, and no amount of pleading or crying or threatening to sue made any difference once she'd made her decision.

"I wanted to call us all together earlier, but last week was rather inconvenient for everyone," Tokio continued. "So we're a little late, but at least we got here. Now, we're going to go around the table, section by section, and we're going to address any and all problems and concerns anyone may have. So get out your complaints and grievances and get ready to show and tell."

And just as she'd been expecting, Kamatari was the first one to open his mouth:

"I have _several_ complaints and grievances," he said.

Next to Tokio—who'd paused behind her chair, resting her elbows on the back—Enishi snorted and rolled his eyes.

"So what else is new?" he muttered, and Kamatari sent him a withering look.

"No fighting you two," Tokio warned. "This is going to be a civil meeting."

"But he started—" Kamatari began, frowning.

"I said civil, damn it!" Tokio snapped. "_No fighting_!"

Kamatari pouted at her, then sighed and smoothed his hair back, and Tokio had a sinking feeling that this inauspicious start was a sign of things to come.

It wasn't quite as bad as she'd imagined it was going to be, but it wasn't as good as she'd been hoping either.

Enishi and Kamatari snapped and snarled at each other and generally acted like five-year-olds, and it took all the will power Tokio possessed to keep from stabbing them both with her pen. The fact that both were well within arm's reach didn't help her resolve. Anji helped her try to keep order, for which she was grateful, and Ren and Misao and Sasaki tried to help her keep the meeting on track, for which she was also quite grateful. Nakajima appeared to be trying to replace Enishi and Kamatari's childish fighting with his general existence as her biggest office peeve, and Kurosagi was frantic in his attempts to prevent his superior's death by decapitation by way of the papers in Tokio's hands.

Which meant that for this group, it was a pretty run-of-the-mill staff meeting.

It also meant that when Tokio said "Meeting adjourned," she was bare seconds away from saying to hell with it and just killing them all.

Kamatari kissed her cheek and said good-night to her, then managed to kiss Enishi's cheek and smirk before flouncing out of the room, leaving a horrified and rather green-looking Enishi in shock. Despite her annoyance, Tokio couldn't help but laugh.

"It's not funny!" Enishi bellowed, scrubbing his cheek vigorously with the sleeve of his blazer. "Fucking hells—this is sexual harassment, goddamn it!"

"If you'd stop acting like a child every time Kamatari-chan does something—" Tokio began, still laughing.

"The fuck it'd do any good!" Enishi yelled back. "That pervert'd just think I liked the attention!"

Tokio rolled her eyes, still smiling, and turned to Ren and Anji who were standing nearby, patiently waiting for her attention.

"Thank you both for coming," she said pleasantly.

Anji and Ren bowed.

"Of course Tokio-san," Ren said politely, shifting the papers and folders in her arms. "Good-night ma'am, good-night Enishi-san."

"Good-night Ren-san," Tokio said (Enishi, who was still scrubbing at his face and looking sour, muttered his in an absentminded sort of way), then looked up at Anji and smiled.

"And I promise your men's tools and supplies will be here in exactly three days, Anji-san."

Anji smiled faintly.

"How many people did you have to threaten to get that done?" he asked, and her smile widened.

"Only one, actually. And it was a very good threat. I'll tell you about it some time."

Anji's smile widened.

"I bet it's a hell of a story, ma'am," he said.

"You're right," she replied cheerfully, and he chuckled.

"Good-night Tokio-san."

"Good-night Anji-san—say hello to Tsubaki-san and the kids for me."

"Yes ma'am," he said, raising a hand. "Good-night Enishi-san."

"Yeah, 'night," Enishi grumbled, still scrubbing at his face. Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Enishi, quit that," she ordered, reaching over and grabbing his arm. "You'll rub your skin off."

"That's the idea," Enishi snapped.

"Baby," she accused.

"Sadist," he accused back. "You won't let me file a sexual harassment lawsuit because you like watching him do that shit to me, you sick twisted wench."

"_You're_ a paranoid neurotic," she shot back. "He's teasing you, stupid. He keeps doing it because you keep freaking out. If you'd stop freaking out he'd stop doing it!"

Misao cleared her throat.

"Uhm, Tokio-san?"

Tokio looked over at the young woman. "Yes?"

"May I go home now?" she asked politely, seeming content to ignore the conversation they'd been having.

"Sure thing," Tokio blithely returned, smiling. "Have a good night, Misao-san."

Misao stood and smoothed down the front of her slacks, bobbing her head, and took her leave after saying the necessary pleasantries, which Tokio and Enishi returned.

Sasaki stepped forward next, to say good-night and get away before they started arguing and he had to wait again, and then Kurosagi stepped forward, looking nervous.

"Thank you for inviting me, Tokio-san," he said quietly, bowing low.

Tokio raised an eyebrow; when had (figuratively) twisting someone's arm become "inviting" him?

"My pleasure Kurosagi-san," she assured, but she wasn't watching the young man—she was looking at Nakajima, eyes glittering and daring the old goat to say something.

Nakajima said nothing, unfortunately—Tokio had really been hoping he'd "make her day," so to speak—but she found some consolation in the slight puckering of his lips in obvious distaste.

Kurosagi nodded in a jerky sort of way and bowed again, then said good-night and good-bye to Tokio and Enishi and Nakajima before turning and fleeing the conference room as fast as he could without actually running.

"He looked like was gonna shit himself," Enishi observed idly.

Tokio rolled her eyes, then turned her gaze to Nakajima, who was waiting nearby.

"Yes, Nakajima-san?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I was wondering what had happened to the Bakumatsu katana, Tokio-san," the curator said, and Enishi sent him a sharp look.

"Why is that?" Enishi asked.

Nakajima's eyes slid over to Enishi, expression meek and a little nervous now.

"I noticed it was missing from the collection."

"The handle was cracked," Tokio said calmly, hands steepled before herself. She leaned back in her chair. "I sent it out to be repaired."

"Ah," Nakajima said at long last. "And where, exactly?"

"Somewhere quite reputable, naturally," Tokio replied.

"Ah." Nakajima's nervous gaze jumped to Enishi, who looked like he was seriously considering coming over the table after the older man. "Of course. Naturally."

"Was that all?" Tokio asked pleasantly.

"Ye…yes ma'am," Nakajima choked out, and Tokio inclined her head.

"Have a nice night, Nakajima-san."

The curator nodded and left the room, taking particular care to take his leave of Enishi and Tokio, and once he'd disappeared into the hall, the Acting Director and the head of Finances exchanged a speaking look. Tokio looked over at Takeda, and the older man nodded and rose and left the room and came back a few moments later with Aoshi at his side.

"You wanted to see me Tokio-san?" he asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Tokio said pleasantly. "I was hoping, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, that you would be willing to supervise the installation of the new security system when our provider sends the technicians tomorrow."

When she'd begun speaking, she'd slid a sheet of paper over to Aoshi, who'd raised an inquisitive brow but nevertheless taken up the sheet of paper and read it:

_Nakajima has made an inquiry about the Shinuchi. I want him watched. Do not let anyone but your superiors see this._

He looked up when Tokio finished speaking.

"I'd be happy to, Tokio-san," he said, and Tokio smiled widely.

"I knew I could count on you, Shinomori-san," she said cheerfully. "That was all—I forgot to mention it earlier, and I just now remembered."

He bobbed his head politely.

"Yes ma'am," he said. "Good-night. Good-night Yukishiro-san."

"Later," Enishi said easily with a lazy wave, and Aoshi nodded and then left the room.

"Will that be all, Takagi-san?" Takeda asked.

Tokio smiled at him.

"Yes, Takeda-san—go home. Good-night."

The older man smiled in return and said his farewells, and then it was just Enishi and Tokio.

"Well that was fascinating," Enishi said, resting his cheek on his fist.

"The meeting?" Tokio asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I was referring to after," he replied.

"Ah," she said with a nod. "Yes, that was fascinating, wasn't it? When do you suppose he noticed it was gone?"

"Don't know," Enishi remarked, absently scratching under his chin. "But it's weird that he waited until now to ask about it, don't you think?"

"Quite," Tokio agreed. "At the very least, it means he hasn't been paying attention."

"Bad characteristics in a head curator, I gotta say," Enishi said.

"Hm."

The conversation was entirely for Nakajima's benefit, in case he was still lurking about somewhere. Since discovering they were in possession of the Shinuchi, both had been paranoid about letting anyone find out about it. In fact, Tokio had only told one person in the museum's legal department, the only person there she trusted absolutely: the senior attorney who'd worked for Akira's father for twenty-odd years before the elder Kiyosato had retired and handed the museum over to his son. The old man was a tomb—he kept more secrets than anyone Tokio knew. Except perhaps, she amended, for Saitou and his coworkers.

And speaking of the Wolf….

"Oi, where's your Inspector?" Enishi asked, as if reading her thoughts.

"Dunno," she admitted. "Then again, I didn't tell him when to come by—I wasn't sure when the meeting'd let out."

"It ran longer than usual," Enishi noted.

Tokio sent him a dry, speaking look.

"Really—I wonder why."

"Fuck you," Enishi replied, enunciating the words carefully.

"Oh no you won't," came a dry voice from the doorway, and Tokio and Enishi looked over to find Saitou lounging in the doorway, hands in his pockets.

Tokio immediately smiled at him.

"Hey," she greeted. "You're just in time."

"I noticed," he replied. "Has your meeting been over for long?"

"About fifteen minutes," Enishi estimated. "By the way, do you make a habit of sneaking up on people?"

Saitou smiled in an odd sort of way.

"Yes he does," Tokio answered, looking at Enishi, so she missed the odd smile. "He's special like that—I think he thinks he's a shinobi."

"Very cute, midget," Saitou drawled, and Enishi grinned widely.

"Heh—midget," he repeated, and Tokio shot him a withering look.

"I _will_ lock you in Kamatari's office—_naked_," she promised, and Enishi blanched and Saitou laughed low under his breath.

The two coworkers went back and forth for a while, and then Enishi took his leave.

"And then there were two," Saitou commented, and Tokio rolled her eyes, then sighed and yawned.

"How was your day?" she asked, slumping down in her seat.

"Interesting," he said with a half-smirk. "We may have a lead on the Hirumas."

Tokio sent him a surprised look.

"Really?" she asked, sounding hopeful.

"The chances're better than they've been for a while," he said with a shrug, coming into the room and stopping by the table. He leaned his hip against it. "I think, anyway."

"That's great," she said with a faint smile. She yawned again. "Did you eat?"

"Nope. You?"

"Uh-uh. Usually we order dinner when we have these meetings after hours, but I forgot to ask Misao-san to do that."

"Speaking of the Weasel, how's that working out?"

"Great, you liar," she said, and he raised an eyebrow.

"'Liar'?" he repeated.

"You said she'd ruin me," Tokio reminded him.

"No, I said she'd have a hand in the End of Days, and as such it probably wasn't a good idea to have her around."

Tokio shrugged. "I paraphrased it." she said, and Saitou snorted.

"If that's paraphrasing, I'm the emperor," he muttered, and Tokio grinned.

"So should I grovel at your feet, Your Supremacy?"

He sent her a dry look.

"If I wasn't so tired, I'd say something very dirty," he assured her, and she laughed. "Come on Chiisai—we'll go find some take-out," he said, holding out a hand, and she sighed, then took it and he hauled her up out of the chair, then leaned down and kissed her.

"Okay," she agreed when he straightened. "And then we'll read the next chapter, right?"

He smiled faintly.

"Yes little girl," he said, and she sighed and shook her head.

"You're a jerk," she said.

"So I've been told."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

He was eight pages into the chapter when she murmured something and made him look down…to find her conked out.

"Oh I don't believe this," he muttered. He set the book, page-side down, aside and gently shook her. "Oi. Oi. Chiisai. Wake up."

She ignored the command, instead snuggling closer, rubbing her cheek against him. He sighed.

"Great," he said dryly, picking up the book and saving their place before closing it and putting it on the night table. "Knew this was a bad idea. Crafty little brat."

Not that he was surprised or anything, mind you: she'd nearly fallen asleep no less than five times over dinner. And he'd been very suspicious of her intent when she'd (far too) innocently asked if they could just stay in his bedroom instead of going out into the living room when they'd gone to get the book from where he'd replaced it last night after she'd left (that neat-freak part of him wouldn't let him just leave it in the living room). It was especially suspicious given that she'd asked after she'd sat down on his bed and remarked (far too) casually on how comfortable it was.

Still, he supposed he was lucky she'd agreed to see him tonight; when they'd spoken earlier in the day, she'd told him she was tired and had hesitantly asked if he minded much if they saw each other tomorrow. He'd been loath to, though, and he'd talked her into it (it hadn't taken much effort though, which led him to believe that he wasn't the only one loath to give up a night). Since that Sunday night blow-out, they'd been more or less well-behaved. They hadn't had another really bad fight, though they'd had several small stupid ones, which was perfectly fine with him; because nothing in his life could be totally normal, he'd gotten used to getting into arguments with her.

"I'm a deeply disturbed individual," he muttered, rubbing a hand up and down her back absently, his other arm pillowing his head.

Which, despite what Okita liked to say, Saitou was well aware of, and had been for some time; a man doesn't date cracked or half-cracked women for a good portion of his formative years without figuring out something important like that after at least the third crazy pick in a row. But that had shit all to do with the degree of disturbed you, in fact, were. Because admitting that you were deeply disturbed was totally different from actually gauging just how deeply disturbed you were.

Sighing, Saitou decided not to think about that, because it was more than a little depressing; it seemed every time he tried to gauge it, he found the degree was a lot closer to being utterly and completely messed up than it had been last time. So instead, he tried to make sense of what Chou had found in Wu's safe.

Just as he'd assured Okita, Chou had dutifully handed over everything that he'd cleaned out of Wu's safe, and Saitou had taken it back to the station and gone over the contents very very carefully with Kenshin and Okita while Chou sat cuffed to a chair complaining about how tight the cuffs were, until Saitou sent him a warning look and said,

"If you don't shut up I'm going to give you something to whine about."

Chou had been silent as the grave after that.

Chou had brought him three large manila folders, and they were full of damning evidence that the prosecutors would have had a field day with, but they didn't have anything on the museum. There was a doctored book from a Chinese shipping company that it had been rumored Wu had connections with, and evidence abounded that Wu had been embezzling money from various sources for years, and they had solid proof for the first time that Wu was not only involved in gun running but also in smuggling narcotics into Japanese ports, among others—but nothing on the museum.

"So ends another episode of 'Wasting Time with Chou-kun'," Okita said sourly once they'd gone through everything. He threw himself back in his chair, frowning, and ignored the nasty look Chou shot him—he would have said something, but he hadn't forgotten Saitou's threat.

Kenshin looked just as disappointed; he tossed a stack of papers down onto the desk.

"Nothing," he said.

"Not quite," Saitou said, earning incredulous looks from his coworkers.

"Dude, _nothing_ in here connects him to the museum," Okita said. "We have no motive, no nothing tying him to it. All we have are the Hirumas and a fucking hunch. For all we know, he skipped town for some other reason that has nothing to do with the museum—he's definitely got the motives for that."

"No, he's still here," Kenshin said emphatically. "There's no other reason for why the Hirumas would have hired Chou to go through Wu's safe. If he was gone, there wouldn't be a point."

"So then," Okita said, looking at Saitou, "what've we got, if we don't have nothing?"

"We have a possibility," Saitou began, folding himself into a chair and taking out a new cigarette. He stuck it between his lips, lit it, then took a deep drag. "And the possibility is that Wu may not be working alone."

They were quiet for a moment, and then Kenshin asked,

"And how did you come to that conclusion?"

"We're working off the 'fucking hunch', as Souji put it, that Wu knew about the Shinuchi and that was what he was after. We're working off the assumption that he had the Hirumas attempt to steal it for him. But doesn't it strike you as odd, that Wu would have _direct_ contact with the lackeys?"

"Oh son of a—we've been over this!" Okita groaned, slapping his forehead. "No one fits! The best lead we had for a partner was Yukishiro, but he's clean. We interviewed and then re-interviewed every single person in the museum—no one threw up a red flag."

"So maybe it isn't someone directly tied to the museum," Kenshin suggested.

"We checked out the messenger service, the cleaners, the security provider—nothing," Okita replied.

"We're overlooking something," Saitou insisted. "Wu has to have a partner, we just haven't figured out who yet."

"He doesn't have a partner," Okita insisted. "Look, I know his MO is that he gives the orders and someone else handles the details, but nothing—_nothing_—of what we've seen so far fits that."

"There're too many gaps," Saitou said, irritated. "The very fact that there're gaps means he's working with someone!"

"Okay, okay," Kenshin cut in, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the two men. "Okita," he said, turning to the man, "Saitou has a point. There are too many holes."

"That doesn't mean he's working with someone!" Okita snapped, bristling.

"No—but it does imply that we've missed something," Kenshin calmly returned, and Okita glared at him mutinously before crossing his arms over his chest and muttering,

"Fine. You got a point."

Eventually, Saitou gathered everything up and gave it back to Chou, who they then set free—after planting a wire on him.

"Are you assholes tryin' a get me shot?" Chou asked, when Kenshin set the wire down on the table in front of the blonde.

"No," Okita assured.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure," Saitou said at the same time.

Chou stared at the amber-eyed man.

"The humanitarian side of him sometimes gets drowned out by the serial killer part," Okita blithely said. He grinned broadly. "Remember?"

Saitou sighed impatiently.

"Just put on the damn wire already." he snapped, and Chou jumped to do his bidding, though he made a big show of complaining about it.

Saitou had never been so glad to see a criminal leave the precinct. Dealing with Chou always tried his nerves a little—the blonde liked to whine and complain. Saitou strongly suspected he did it just to piss him off. The reminder that Saitou didn't mind cracking him over the head with a nightstick usually shut him up for a while. Unfortunately, it was never nearly as long as Saitou would have liked.

At some point during his musings, he must have fallen asleep, because he awakened to the phone ringing and a very disgruntled, half-asleep Tokio.

"Answer it," she ordered, voice slurred, poking him hard in the ribs.

"Quit that," he snapped, a little disoriented.

"Answer it then!"

"Stop poking me and I will!"

She muttered something, eyes still closed, frowning, but she stopped. He didn't care enough to find out what she'd said, so he left well enough alone.

He grabbed his cell phone off the bedside table and answered with a growl that left no doubt as to his mood:

"What?"

"Saitou-san," came Aoshi's voice, calm despite his superior's temper. "I'm sorry to disturb you like this, but I missed you at the museum, and it took me a while to get a hold of your contact information."

"What is it Shinomori?" he asked wearily, sighing but still quite frustrated.

"I thought you might like to know—Tokio-san asked me to keep close watch on the head curator."

Saitou frowned, trying to remember the curator's name and face.

"Nakajima?" he asked finally, wondering how he could have forgotten the bastard.

"Yes sir."

"Why? What happened?"

"Apparently, Nakajima inquired after the Shinuchi."

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"By name?" he asked, a little incredulous; oh surely the man wasn't _that_ _spectacularly stupid_….

"No sir. At least, Tokio-san didn't mention it if he did. But however he went about it, something made Tokio-san suspicious, because after her staff meeting let out she sent Takeda-san to fetch me. And she didn't ask me directly—she wrote her request down on paper while she was waiting for me, and slid it over to me, all the while asking me to supervise the installation of the security cameras."

Saitou did not like hearing that in the least. Something must have been seriously off for Tokio to go to such lengths when asking Aoshi to spy on her head curator.

"Are you thinking of putting a surveillance team on him?"

"Yes sir, and bugging his office and tapping his phone lines. I was hoping you could help me get clearance for the other two." Aoshi replied.

"I'm giving you authorization to request whatever you need," Saitou immediately said. "I'll let Hijikata know tomorrow morning, and he'll help you get the clearance you need for all that. He's good at that."

"Yes sir, thank you."

"Yeah—keep me updated—_very_ updated—on Nakajima's activities."

"Yes sir."

He ended the call and set the cell phone down on the bed next to himself, scowling. His mind was going around and around, and he was drawing some conclusions he didn't like.

They had never been able to figure out how Wu had found out about the Shinuchi (assuming that was indeed what he was after; they were going, after all, on a "fucking hunch") when the people who'd had it in their possession for years had been unaware of it, or how the Hirumas had managed to disable the security system—because somehow or another, they had gotten a hold of the proper codes. That much the officers had figured out after examining the system. And they had also never figured out, Saitou realized with a deepening frown, who had leaked the bomb threat to the press, either. But, if someone on the inside had been helping Wu, someone who wouldn't raise suspicions, someone trustworthy, someone with the security clearance…then several questions suddenly had answers.

It made more and more sense the more he thought about it, and he really didn't like the set-up at all.

Tokio interrupted his musings when she snuggled closer, rubbing her cheek against his chest. He looked down at her and found her dead asleep again. And he decided she had the right idea. But before he could join her, he heard the sound of a phone going off in the general direction of the living room—Tokio's cell phone. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have given a flying damn, but he checked his wristwatch and saw how late it was and suddenly knew exactly who was calling.

He disentangled himself from her, went into the next room and dug through her purse for her phone. When he glanced at the display, he felt justified in feeling impending doom: the display was flashing "Home".

He went back into the bedroom, sat on the bed and nudged her, phone still going off—the hell he was going to answer it. He wanted to sleep, not die.

"Chiisai. Wake up."

She flagrantly ignored the command. He nudged harder.

"Oi. Your phone's going off."

Nothing.

"Damn it Tokio wake the hell up!" he snapped, shaking her in earnest now.

"Stop it," she whined, trying to shove his hand off.

"Answer the phone, your father's calling," he said, knowing that would get her up.

And man was he right.

Her hand shot out and she ripped the phone from his hand and would have taken a few fingers too if he hadn't let go a second before. Unfortunately, the phone stopped ringing the second she grabbed it, and she cursed and swiped sleepily at her eyes. Fortunately, though, it began ringing again, and she answered it mid-ring:

"Hello? …Hi Mama. Yeah, I was asleep, sorry. Huh? Yeah. I know, I'm sorry. I forgot. No. Yeah. Okay. Okay Mama. 'Night. 'Bye."

She ended the call, then squinted at the screen for a moment before holding it out to him.

"Look for Sada, please," she said.

He ignored the phone.

"Well? What did your mother say?"

"She's gonna tell Papa," she replied, yawning, and began to insistently wave the phone in his face.

He batted it away, getting a terrible feeling all of a sudden—like he should be writing up his Last Will and Testament or something like that.

"What's she going to tell him?" he asked warily.

"That I'm staying with Sada, now would you please look for her number? I can't see," she said, sounding very annoyed that he was making her explain herself.

He accepted the phone and went through the address book.

"Who's Sada?" he asked, and wondered why the name was so familiar.

"My sister."

Saitou paused in his search and blinked, then suddenly remembered his little foray into her family's records.

"Oh." _Act dumb._ "You have a sister?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why didn't you ever mention her?" He found Sada's name and number and pressed the call button, then handed the phone over to her.

She shrugged lazily and accepted the phone. "Just didn't." She put it to her ear.

"She gonna come for you or something?"

"No." she replied with another yawn.

He felt wary again without knowing why, and opened his mouth to ask what she was doing, but apparently her sister answered, because she murmured,

"Hey it's me." She smiled sleepily, eyes closed. "Fine. I know, I know, I will. Soon. Promise. All right, all right. Oi, do me a favor, huh? I need you to bring a bag of stuff to a place for me. …No, not the museum, Sada."

And to his shock, Tokio then proceeded to give her sister directions to his apartment.

Holy freaking hells.

She was _staying_?!?

She ended the call and put the phone back in his palm. He stared at her; she once again curled up and seemed very nonchalant and ready to go back to sleep.

"You're staying?" he asked after a moment, and was very proud of his mild tone.

She cracked one eye open and sent him a sleepy look.

"I was planning on it," she murmured, "I'm not feeling up to taking the train home. Why? Is that a problem?"

"Feh—if it is, I'm more of a flaming queen than Honjou," he muttered, and she smiled and closed her eye.

He was quiet for a moment. Then:

"Is your sister bringing your stuff now?"

"Tomorrow morning," she murmured. "Busy now."

"Hm." Another pause. "You want a shirt or something? You'll wrinkle your clothes if you sleep in th—"

"Go to sleep Hajime," she murmured, smiling a little.

Saitou wasn't stupid—a man didn't argue with a woman in his bed.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter Nineteen: And Now For Something Completely Different:_

"Why are you here?"

"I live here, Tokio."

---

"Ta-da: your hooker boots!" she happily announced, and Tokio froze, staring at the boots with wide, horrified eyes.

_I'll kill her_, she immediately thought.

---

"So how pissed off are you right now?"

"Pretty pissed."

"On a scale of one to ten."

"Somewhere around one thousand."

Sada whistled. "That's pretty pissed all right," she agreed, sipping her coffee.

---

"This is exactly why I call you a pervert," she said.

"I didn't say anything," he returned mildly.

"But you're _thinking_ it."

"Oh you have no _idea_."

* * *

I suppose it was sort of silly to keep the previews in, but I like writing them and I know for a fact that several of my readers like reading them, so I figured "Eh, what the hell?" and left them in. Now you get to see how they all come together—so what are you doing still reading the ramblings of an insane woman? Go! 


	19. And Now For Something Completely

**BE WARNED!** This is the **second par**t of a **two chapter post**. I suggest you read the preceding chapter, or you will very confuzzled, and that's not fun.

If you did read the preceding chapter, well then feel free to ignore this.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nothing.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

108 sins: I'm not a Buddhist, practicing or otherwise, and I've only just recently begun studying it in any formal way, but from what I understand, Buddhist canon recognizes 108 Bonno, or "sins"/"worldly desires"/"afflicting passions of man," which is a hell of a lot of sinning, but that's another story for another day. I don't actually know for a fact that the Bonno I name in this chapter is actually a Bonno, but I figure the odds that it is are better than the odds that it ain't, so I'm sticking with it.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Nineteen: And Now For Something Completely Different_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It had been way too long since he'd awakened next to a woman.

That was Saitou's conclusion when he opened his eyes the next morning and had a heart attack when he saw Tokio there next to him, out cold.

"Jesus!" he yelped, shooting out of the bed as if he'd been lit on fire.

Tokio's reaction to that outburst was to make a wordless noise of protest, then roll over and continue sleeping. He doubted she'd actually heard anything.

He blew out a long breath and scratched the back of his head, then let out a low, short laugh.

"Pathetic," he muttered.

He glanced at the clock on the bedside table and decided now was as good a time as any to start getting ready, even though it was a full half hour earlier than he usually got up. So he grabbed some clothes and headed for the shower. When he got back thirty minutes later, dressed but not entirely put together (his shirt wasn't tucked into his jeans and he didn't have his belt on), she was still asleep.

He walked over to the bed, reached down and gently shook her shoulder, and tried not to laugh at the way half of her face was covered by her hair.

"Chiisai," he said, pitching his voice neither too loud nor too low. "Wake up."

"Five more minutes," she muttered from under her hair.

"Sorry Chiisai—time to wake up."

It took a little more coaxing to get her to open her eyes, and that was when she swiped the hair off her face and rubbed her eyes and yawned.

"Mean," she muttered churlishly.

"Well, you got make up all over my pillow and my shirt—I figure this puts us even."

She sat up slowly and then frowned and looked around groggily.

"This isn't my room," she said.

"No it's not," he patiently agreed, and she looked up at him, blinked, and then her expression went from confused to surprised.

"Why are you here?"

"I live here, Tokio."

She blinked again. "Oh."

He tried and failed to keep from smirking.

"Would coffee jumpstart your brain, Chiisai?"

She sent him a flat look that was completely ruined by the way her hair was sticking up—it was hard to take a glare seriously when the person delivering it looked like your crazy aunt.

"You're a jerk," she said. Pause. "And yes, coffee would help."

He inclined his head.

"If you like, I'll make some for you," he generously offered, "while you take a shower. I suggest cold water, to wake you up—oof!"

He grimaced and wished he'd been paying closer attention to her—then maybe he could have avoided the fist to the gut.

Yukishiro was right: she did hit like a man.

"Thank you Hajime," she sweetly said, getting up and starting toward the door. She paused when she got there, turned around and asked,

"Uhm…you wouldn't happen to have a robe or anything, would you? For after the shower?"

"No," he replied, still grimacing and rubbing the spot she'd hit.

She frowned. "Well what am I supposed to wear until Sada comes with my clothes?"

"A towel?" he suggested, unable to let the opportunity to embarrass her pass him by, even if he was in pain.

She flushed.

"I'm not going to wear a towel," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Naked is good too," he said.

The flush deepened.

"Pervert," she accused.

"Can't blame me for trying," he said.

"Hajime," she whined. "Come on, I'm serious!"

"I am too."

"Hajime!" she barked.

"All right, all right," he said, giving in; she was no fun when she was cranky. He dug through his drawers and found an old shirt he thought would meet her requirements and tossed it at her. "Here, that's the best I can do right now."

"Thank you," she said, then narrowed her eyes. "If this doesn't do the job, you're a dead man," she warned.

"Then I'll die content," he sweetly returned, smirking, "having seen what you look like in your birthday suit."

She sent him another withering look (her hair once again neutering its effectiveness), then turned around and walked to the bathroom. He watched her go, then sighed and rubbed the spot she'd hit again with a look of vague discomfort on his face. He decided he was very lucky she'd been sitting up when she'd decided to retaliate, or he might be curled up in the fetal position on the floor and in excruciating pain, and it was just too damn early for that kind of thing.

By the time she left the bathroom, he had a cup of coffee sitting on the table waiting for her. He hardly ever used the stuff, unless he was suffering from a severe hangover, and those didn't happen often enough for him to keep big tins of coffee around.

"You wouldn't happen to have a hair dryer, would you?" she asked hopefully as she padded over to the table.

It took supreme effort not to stare at her, and he busied himself with making a great production of drinking the coffee—oh gods, he was going to find a way to get her to stay with him at least one day a week.

The shirt reached her knees, and kept all the important parts covered, but that wasn't what brought on his reaction. The thing was, she looked so painfully cute, freshly scrubbed and barefoot and wearing his shirt.

…And he had _not_ just thought that.

"Hajime," she said.

"Yeah," he replied, not having realized he'd spaced out.

"Do you have a hair dryer?"

He stared at her.

"Why would you think I had one?" he asked finally.

"_Well_," she began, and he sighed when he realized he'd pretty much asked for this one, "you _do_ have hair, and it _does_ get wet, so it didn't seem like such a stretch to think you probably had one."

"Sorry Chiisai, can't help you there."

She pursed her lips, then shrugged and plopped down at the table, folding one leg under herself.

"I guess one day won't kill me," she said, picking up the coffee and taking a sip. She paused and stared down at it, then looked up at him. "What is this?"

"Coffee."

"No, what flavor."

"Coffee," he repeated.

She blinked.

"Oh." Pause. "How in the world did you find coffee that tastes like coffee?"

"It wasn't easy."

"I bet." She looked back down at the cup. "Huh. That's so weird. I don't think I've had coffee that tastes like coffee…ever."

"Ah, you poor deprived child," he said with a smirk just before he took another sip, and she made a face at him.

"You're not that much older than me," she reminded him.

"And yet, I've known so much more," he dryly replied, and she rolled her eyes and went back to her coffee.

"When's your sister coming with your clothes? Not that I mind you walking around my apartment like that," he added, gesturing to her general appearance with his mug.

"You know, carnal desire is one of the 108 sins, Hajime," Tokio said, one eyebrow raised.

He smirked.

"And when did I ever say I was hoping to one day become a Buddha, Tokio?" he replied, and she rolled her eyes.

"Touché," she muttered, then sighed. "I dunno. She's probably on her way over here right now. She lives in Shinjuku Ward."

"That's not so far away," he commented. "Just one ward over."

"No, but Sada's bad with directions. She usually gets lost on the way to pretty much everywhere unless she's been there more than four times."

"She lives in the wrong city, then," Saitou said; attempting to find an address in Tokyo was roughly the equivalent of taking a brick and bashing it into your face for about an hour.

Tokio smiled wryly.

"You have no idea how often she says that to me—she always calls me up when she's lost and asks me how to get un-lost. It never works, of course, so I'm on the phone with her until she figures out how to get home."

"Blind leading the blind, eh?" he asked with a smirk, and she rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee-flavored coffee with all the dignity she could muster, sitting at his table with wet hair in a shirt that hung off her like an ill-fitting dress.

As it happened, she could make that look quite dignified.

It particularly helped that her hair was no longer sticking up.

He leaned against the counter and watched her, the wheels in his brain already cranking to try and see if he could get her to stay with him tomorrow night too. Or barring that, the night after tomorrow. Or the night after that. Or…well, you get the idea.

Her cell phone went off, and she had to go into his bedroom and look for it.

"Hey," he heard her say. There was a short pause, and then Tokio asked, "Where are you? …No, you went in the wrong direction. Yeah. …No it's not, I never said it was near the museum—I said it wasn't very far away. …No it's not the same thing Sada—no it's not. Is not. _Is not_. Is not infinity—I win." He heard the sliding glass door that led from his room to the balcony slide open and her voice moved outside.

And that was about the time he decided to drag her back inside, because she was wearing one of his shirts and that was about it.

He found her leaning against the railing, squinting down at the street.

"Oi, get back in here," he said from the doorway.

She impatiently waved a hand at him.

"Keep walking," she said to her sister. "It's one of the older apartment complexes. Just walk—well no one told you to go the wrong way, that's your fault. Sada, I already won that argument. I didn't say I was _right_, I said I _won_, now stop bitching and keep going. If I can walk from the museum to this apartment complex in heels, you can damn well do it in your shoes."

"Tokio," he said, putting just enough menace into his voice. "Get back inside. You've got wet hair and it's cold as hell out here."

She covered the bottom of the phone and sent him a stern look over her shoulder.

"Wait a minute," she hissed. "I want to make sure she gets here or I'll never get to work."

"If you catch your death out here you won't be getting to work either."

"Wait," she ordered.

"I don't even see how you'll be able to tell when she gets here," he said irritably, frowning at her. "We're eight stories up."

"Trust me, I'll be able to tell," Tokio assured turning back toward the street and uncovering the phone. "Oi, come on, I'm cold," she said. "Where are you?" She raised herself up on tiptoes and leaned a little farther over the railing. "Oh I see you now—look up. Left. My left—eight stories. I'm the one waving," she added, and proceeded to do just that.

From somewhere below, Saitou heard a female voice shout,

"THERE YOU ARE!"

Tokio laughed.

"Come on up dopey—8-D. And hurry up!"

She ended the call and sent him a smile.

"See? Told you."

"Just get inside," he growled, gesturing to the inside of the apartment with his head.

She made a face at him and sauntered back in, still grinning. He waited until she passed by him to give her a light whap on the rear.

"Hajime!"

"Next time I tell you to go inside, I'd appreciate it if you did it," he said, shutting the door. "I'd rather not get blamed for letting you get sick."

She frowned at him, one hand still on her butt.

"Paranoid," she accused.

"Absolutely—you're capable of anything, my dear."

She flounced back into the living room and plopped down at the table again, and he returned to the counter. When someone—he assumed her sister—began knocking rather insistently on the door, he sent her a dirty look.

"You sit and drink your coffee," he ordered, setting his own cup down.

She stuck her tongue out at him but did as he said, for a change, and he went to the door and opened it…and stared.

He now knew exactly how Tokio had been able to spot her sister from eight stories up—she couldn't have missed her.

Not even if she'd been blind.

Takagi Sada had bright red hair. Not Kenshin's red, but an obviously dyed, not-occurring-naturally-in-nature hue best described as crayon red. She was also wearing—there was really no other way of saying it that fit quite as well—a psychedelic colored trench over an obscenely short, pleated skirt and thigh highs (which were surprising for their mundane colors, gray and white respectively) and a baggy teal shirt so bright it made him squint a little or risk permanently ruining his retinas. She was also wearing old fashioned galoshes, buckled only enough that they wouldn't come flying off her feet when she walked. They were of a rather psychedelic coloring as well, and he couldn't be sure, but he very strongly suspected that she might have dyed the trench to match the galoshes. Or maybe, gods forbid, they'd come together as a_ set_.

A low whistle had his attention going back to her face. Surprisingly, it was free of make up. That was also when he realized she was shorter than Tokio.

"Wow," she said with a wide smile, voice appreciative. "Sis sure knows how to pick 'em."

"You're Sada," he said—it was almost, but not _quite_, a question.

"Yup yup—and you must be Sexy," Sada said mischievously, and he raised an eyebrow.

"'Sexy'?" he parroted.

"Hajime, let her in," Tokio called. "I want to get to work some time this year."

He slowly stepped aside and let Sada bounce in—yes, _bounce_—and shut the door and took her coat from her. She beamed at him, then padded into the apartment after depositing her shoes on the rack.

"Waah! There you are!" Sada cried, pouncing on her sister, who was laughing.

"You suck with directions," Tokio said, hugging the smaller woman.

"You know that, silly girl," Sada chided, pulling away and brandishing the duffle bag she'd been holding—Saitou hadn't noticed it.

Not that anyone could blame him, considering who'd delivered it.

"As promised, your clothes," she said importantly, and Tokio accepted the bag, plopped it onto her lap and unzipped it and went through it, then nodded.

"Very nice," she said. She looked up at her sister and grinned. "Thanks."

Sada curtsied.

"The pleasure is absolutely mine, dearest sister—I finally got to see Sexy. _Very_ nice, by the way—I approve muchly."

Tokio flushed slightly, eyes going to Saitou, who was standing by the door, looking a little shell-shocked and confused and trying to cover up both. She couldn't help but grin at his expression—Sada tended to have that effect on people.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"So, how did the test drive work out?" Sada asked, no shame, and Tokio went red.

"Sada!" she snapped.

"What?" her sister asked, feigning hurt confusion, but her eyes were twinkling.

"Little demon," Tokio growled, and Sada swiped Tokio's cup of coffee off the table and held it up.

"You can't hit me—I'm holding a drink," Sada said authoritatively.

"You can't hold it forever," Tokio pointed out.

Sada smiled sweetly.

"Wanna bet?" she asked.

A snort from Saitou's direction had both women looking over at him.

"Gods, she sounds like Souji," he said, looking like he'd recovered.

"Who's Souji?" Sada asked.

"One of Hajime's coworkers," Tokio said, and sent her sister a warning look. "And no, I'm not introducing you—you'll leave him broke."

"Will not," Sada replied, sounding vaguely offended.

"Will too—you cheat."

Sada rolled her eyes.

"You're supposed to—_duh_," she said as if that should have been common knowledge, and Saitou's smirk widened a little more—yeah, she sounded like Okita all right.

"Oh!" Sada said suddenly, brightening, and she set the cup down on the table and rubbed her palms together. "I brought you something extra!"

Tokio looked intrigued.

"What?"

In answer, Sada began digging through the duffle bag, though she was careful not to upset Tokio's clothing overly. After a moment, she produced a pair of black leather boots with lethal looking stiletto heels and presented them to Tokio with a flourish.

"Ta-da: your hooker boots!" she happily announced, and Tokio froze, staring at the boots with wide, horrified eyes.

_I'll kill her_, she immediately thought.

There was a long pause, and then Saitou dryly inquired,

"You have hooker boots, Tokio?"

_Sooooo going to kill her._

Tokio snatched the boots out of Sada's hands, flushing.

"They were part of an old costume," she muttered, then realized that was the wrong thing to say when Saitou raised an eyebrow and Sada started snickering.

_It'll be a murder-suicide_, Tokio decided.

"Sada," she snapped, glaring, "_why_ did you bring me these?"

Sada sent Tokio an expectant look, and a light bulb went off in Tokio's head:

"No," she said immediately. "Uh-uh, _not_ happening."

"But you promised!" Sada returned, frowning.

"I can't!"

"You promised you would this time!"

"I have work Sada!"

"You don't work at night!"

"_Ha_! That's what you think!"

"Oi, Round One's over," Saitou interrupted before things got bad. "Now what the hell are you two arguing about?" He sent Tokio a faint smirk. "Lose a bet?" he added sweetly, and she sent him a venomous look that told him he was losing major points.

"No I did not lose a bet," she bit out.

"Then?" he prompted.

Tokio sighed and gestured to the young woman currently glaring at her, arms crossed over her chest—she put him in mind of a very angry, sort of insane little pixie.

"Sada has a band that plays clubs and I usually go to the shows—" Tokio began.

"Except for the past year and a half," Sada interrupted, a hard edge to her tone that had Saitou raising an eyebrow, surprised; it seemed temper ran in the females in this family.

"I've been busy!" Tokio spat back. "I'm still busy—I'm always busy!"

"Not that busy, apparently," Sada said with a pointed look in Saitou's direction, and Tokio flushed and Saitou thought he was probably doing Tokio more harm than good at the moment.

"I didn't sleep with him, not that it's any of your business," Tokio said.

"Yeah right," Sada muttered.

"I didn't!"

"Bull! You're going to tell me you spent the night at his place and didn't do anything?"

"Yes!"

"That's pathetic!"

"Yes it is!" Tokio said at the same time Saitou did, though his was far less adamant, and Tokio sent him a withering look. "I don't need help, thank you very much."

He wisely decided not to reply that he hadn't said it with the intention of helping, because he was pretty sure she'd throw the boots at him, and he didn't relish going to the emergency room with a three-inch stiletto-heeled boot jammed in his forehead.

That was the sort of thing a guy just couldn't explain away.

"You promised you'd come see us this time!" Sada accused. "If you have enough time to—"

"If you think that being my sister somehow makes you immune to getting the crap kicked out of you," Tokio began, shoving the duffle bag out of her lap onto the floor and rising, "go ahead and finish that sentence!"

Saitou pictured having to explain to Tokio and Sada's father how they'd killed each other before his very eyes (because he had no doubt that Tokio's sister could throw down just as dirty as the elder Takagi) and decided he didn't want to meet Kojuro under those conditions—wasn't really conducive to getting the old man to not loathe and detest him for the rest of this days.

So he threw Sada's coat aside and grabbed Tokio and hauled her away from her sister before she made good on her threat.

"Cat fights aren't my thing ladies," he said. "Let's keep it civil—I don't make enough to hire someone to get blood out of the carpet."

"She started it!" Tokio spat out, making a valiant effort to get out of his hold.

"Well I'm finishing it!" he snapped, grabbing the wrist of her right hand and tightening his hold on her waist. "Now pretend to be an adult!"

She dug her left elbow into his side hard, and he gritted his teeth and snarled,

"Damn it Tokio!"

"Let go!"

"No!"

"Huh," Sada said rather suddenly, and Saitou and Tokio paused and looked over at her.

The redhead was watching them, a surprised and impressed look on her face.

"You're the first guy I ever saw who wasn't afraid to grab her like that," she observed. "All the other ones treated her like glass."

Saitou snorted.

"Yeah, 'cause she's so fucking delicate," he muttered, and was rewarded with a head butt to the jaw. "Shit, Tokio!" he bellowed. "Quit that already!"

"Well if you'd let go—!"

"I'm not gonna let go so stop!" he shouted, and to prove it he gave her a shake, gentle enough not to hurt her in any way but hard enough to let her know he was pissed off and not in the mood for her temper tantrums.

Tokio apparently decided it wasn't worth it to keep insisting on his letting her go, though she did not give up with good grace: she gave the arm banded around her waist a good hard flick, and he squeezed her a little harder.

"What did I just say?" he demanded.

"I'm done!" she irritably returned. "Jerk," she added under her breath.

He briefly thought about strangling her, but decided that now wasn't a convenient time, what with Sada there. Later, he decided, if she was still pissing him off, he'd strangle her without possible witnesses around.

"So now that you've finished your fight with Sexy can we finish ours?" Sada asked dryly, arms crossed.

"Are you trying to make me kill her?" Saitou asked in exasperation.

"No, but she promised and I'm not letting her get out of this one," Sada said.

"You know if I could I'd go!" Tokio returned. "But I can't go now!"

"You said you'd come last time you missed a show!" Sada repeated, stamping her foot. "You promised that next show you'd come and you'd keep the promise this time!"

Tokio made a sound of frustration low in the back of her throat.

"I didn't think someone would break into the damn museum and ruin us before the next show!"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Are you serious?" Tokio demanded, raising her voice, and Saitou wanted to bash his head into a wall; if this was how it was going to be every time Sada brought Tokio a change of clothes, maybe he'd take a rain check on having her stay with him.

"It's too early in the goddamn morning for this shit!" he bellowed, silencing both women rather effectively. "Now you shut up and don't talk!" he said, glaring at Sada, who watched him with a meek expression on her face not unlike her sister's, when Tokio was trying to weasel out of a tight spot. "And you go get dressed already!" he said, dragging Tokio over to the room and shoving her in.

"I need the bag—"

"I'll give you the damn bag!" he snapped, and she closed her mouth and sent him a sort of offended look that he was going to have to deal with later.

He stalked over to the bag, grabbed it, went back to the door and held it out to her, glaring at her and daring her to say something contrary. She watched him in silence for a second, then said,

"Thank you."

"You're welcome—you have five minutes."

She looked a little more annoyed than cowed now, but she took the bag and didn't say anything. She did, however, let him know exactly what she thought about that by snapping the door shut sharply in his face.

He did some calculating, and figured that the amount of candy he'd need to get back into her good graces was more or less equal to the square footage of the bigger islands that made up Japan proper, and possibly included the smaller ones too.

So he'd be in debt to a fucking _candy store_ for the rest of his life.

His life was so painfully not normal...

He turned around to find Sada going through his cabinets.

"What the hell are you doing, if I may ask?" he asked dryly, raising an incredulous eyebrow.

Instead of jumping and stammering out an embarrassed apology, Tokio's sister looked over her shoulder at him and sent him a wry, slightly cheeky smile.

"Do you eat anything but soba?" she asked.

He sent her one of his more impressive glares and she whistled in appreciation.

"Wow, that's a good one—almost as good as one of Dad's," she commented. "You tried that one out on Tokio yet?"

"No," he snapped.

"Well don't, hers are better," Sada replied, and Saitou was at a loss as to how to respond to that—he had a feeling Sada was trying to offer advice along the same vein as Kamatari, but the only difference was that the advice Kamatari gave didn't usually hurt his ego quite so much.

Sada shut the cabinet, then turned around and vaulted herself up onto the counter.

"Got anymore coffee?"

"Yeah," he said with a weary sigh, and glanced at his wristwatch, suddenly very glad that he'd gotten up earlier than usual.

He walked over to the kitchen and got her a cup, and tossed a few spoonfuls of coffee into it, then poured hot water in. When he handed the cup to Sada, her eyes were twinkling with amusement.

"No coffee pot?" she asked, accepting the cup.

"I don't drink coffee regularly."

"Better get one," she advised. "Sis needs either coffee or tea pretty much right after she wakes up. She's cranky without it."

"I know," he muttered, grabbing his own cup and tossing what was left down the drain.

Sada sipped and made a small noise of surprise.

"Huh," she said. "This tastes weird. What flavor?"

"Coffee."

"Coffee?"

"Yes."

"…Huh. That musta taken forever to find."

"Yeah."

"So how pissed off are you right now?"

"Pretty pissed."

"On a scale of one to ten."

"Somewhere around one thousand."

Sada whistled. "That's pretty pissed all right," she agreed, sipping her coffee.

The bedroom door slid open, and Saitou and Sada looked over to find Tokio dressed in the pantsuit her sister had brought her, still looking miffed.

"Don't bother him," Tokio ordered, and Sada pouted in her direction.

"I'm not bothering him," she said defensively.

"Yes you are—he doesn't want to talk to anyone right now," Tokio replied, dumping the duffle bag on the chair she'd been using.

Sada made a face at her sister.

"Mean," she muttered.

Saitou meanwhile, was intrigued that Tokio—who hadn't been in the room with him and Sada and thus had not witnessed their interaction—had figured out that he wasn't in the mood to entertain the younger Takagi with conversation. Not that he was ever in the mood to entertain anyone with conversation, but he might make the effort on occasion if he saw some benefit in it for him.

Unfortunately, now that Saitou was off-limits, Tokio was the prime target again:

"You said you'd go," she said, raising an eyebrow, and Tokio's lips thinned.

"Sada," she growled, shooting her sister one of those glares the redhead must have been talking about (and she was right, they were way better than his), "what part of 'I'm busy' do you not understand?"

"You said you'd go!"

"What difference does it make if I don't go to this one when I haven't gone to the last twenty-five?!?"

"I thought you supported me," Sada said, sending her sister a baleful look.

Tokio's expression became exasperated and long-suffering.

"Don't start that crap, Sada," she said wearily. "You know I do."

"Got a funny way of showing it," Sada muttered, looking genuinely upset for the first time that morning.

Saitou's gaze went from Sada to Tokio to Sada then back again, just in time to catch the exact moment when the elder Takagi just gave up. And he'd never admit it, but he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Fine," Tokio snapped with an impatient sigh. "I'll go to the bloody freaking show."

Sada blinked, then slowly smiled and set her cup down.

"Really?" she asked, voice excited.

"Yes," Tokio bit out, looking like she was moments away from ripping her sister's head off. Which might not have been very far off the mark, actually.

The redhead let out a shrill squeal that had Saitou flinching, and she launched herself at Tokio, hugging her and jumping up and down like a kid on a sugar high and rather roughly jostling Tokio, who looked resigned to her fate.

"YAY! Thank you Tokio!"

"Yeah yeah yeah—stop jumping," Tokio commanded, and Sada immediately obeyed.

"Saturday night at the usual place, be there by eight," Sada instructed, and Tokio sighed.

"Yes Sada."

"Don't be like that—you always have fun," Sada chided with a pout, and Tokio watched her with vague resentment before she hung her head.

"Manipulative little demon spawn, that's what you are," Tokio muttered, and Sada grinned and hugged her sister again.

"I know!" she gleefully agreed, and Tokio smiled and returned the hug.

Sada caught Saitou watching the reconciliation and her grin widened and he suddenly had a horrible premonition of impending doom.

"And bring Sexy," Sada added, and Tokio froze.

"What?" she and Saitou asked in unison, both sounding surprised.

"Bring Sexy," Sada repeated, and even went so far as to gesture to Saitou in case they weren't sure exactly who "Sexy" was.

Tokio met Saitou's gaze.

"Uh, Sada, I don't think—" the elder sister began hesitantly.

"Bring him," Sada said again, and this time it wasn't a request. Tokio watched her sister helplessly for a few moments, then looked over at Saitou and smiled weakly.

"I guess you're going too," she said.

"I didn't—" he started, but one narrowed look from Sada had him considering his next words carefully. "I guess I'm going too," he said finally, and Sada beamed at him.

"Yay!" She clapped her hands. "And you must bring this Souji friend of yours as well."

"Uh…" Tokio was frantically shaking her head and mouthing "NO!" at him over Sada's head. "…I'll see what I can do—I think he's out of town, though."

Sada pouted; Tokio looked immensely relieved.

"Boo," Sada muttered. Then she brightened and shrugged. "Oh well, there's always next time. Anyway, I gotta go, but I'll see you both on Saturday, right?"

Her tone implied that any answer that did not in any way resemble yes would not be acceptable.

"Right," Saitou said.

"Absolutely," Tokio said at the same time.

Sada smiled widely in satisfaction, and Saitou privately decided that calling her "Manipulative little demon spawn" was being far too generous.

She left with a flourish, donning her Technicolor galoshes and trench and skipping out the door after kissing Tokio's cheek and startling the hell out of him by attacking him with a hug on her way out. Saitou watched the door click closed and stood there watching it for a long time, half expecting Sada to come bursting through it again, then turned to Tokio, who was watching him and trying very very hard not to laugh.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked finally, and Tokio couldn't hold her laughter in anymore.

"You just met my little sister," she said, smiling.

"Holy hells," he muttered.

"That sounds about right," Tokio remarked, amused. "You did very well, by the way—she likes you quite a lot."

He raised an eyebrow but didn't reply, since he had no idea how to respond to that.

"She's nothing like you," he said instead.

"Eh, a little," Tokio admitted with a shrug. "My filters just work better than Sada's. Everything that pops into her head sounds like a good idea."

"Like the coat and galoshes?" he dryly inquired and she laughed.

"Your face was hysterical when you handed her her coat," she told him, still laughing.

"It looks like someone threw up a rainbow on it," he muttered. "And what's with the hair?"

"That was my idea," she admitted. "She wanted to change her hair color and asked me what I thought she should dye it next. I said red—it's my favorite color."

"What color was it before?" he asked warily, not sure if he wanted to know.

Tokio grinned:

"Yellow."

"Jesus Christ."

Tokio laughed again.

"I can't understand where she came from," Saitou said. "Your father's pretty conservative, all things considered."

Tokio pursed her lips.

"Papa and Mama are pretty traditionalist," she agreed. "Especially Papa. And when Sada told him she wanted to start a band it didn't go over well at all. They never got along very well—sometimes I thought Sada secretly wanted to give Papa a heart attack. So I wasn't really that surprised that she left home when she turned eighteen. Papa said if she left, she shouldn't bother coming back, and that was the last time they ever spoke to each other as far as I know."

"And does the family not talk about her?" Saitou asked, beginning to understand why Tokio had never mentioned her sister before.

"Not when Papa's around. Mama and Morinusuke are always asking me how Sada's doing, since I see her and talk to her more often than they do—she was born less than a year after me, so we've always been close."

He grunted. "I take it you were her biggest supporter when she announced she wanted to be a musician?"

Tokio smiled.

"Sada dreams big," she said simply. "And she encourages other people to dream big too. It was my turn to return the favor, that's all."

He nodded, then smiled wolfishly when he remembered something.

"So why exactly does she call me 'Sexy'?" he asked casually, and Tokio flinched in surprise.

"What?" she asked a little too sharply, in a way that told him she'd heard exactly what he'd asked the first time.

"Why does your sister call me 'Sexy'?" His eyebrows rose suggestively. "Something you want to tell me, Chiisai?"

"I have to brush my teeth!" she blurted, grabbing the duffle bag and dashing into the bathroom, and Saitou threw back his head and laughed.

Fifteen minutes later, he was standing in the entry, his shoes and jacket on and his badge and gun hidden under the jacket, leaning against the front door with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting patiently for Tokio to get her things together. When she appeared, now with her hair up as usual and not a strand out of place, she had the duffle bag slung over one shoulder, her purse on the other, her briefcase in one hand and her coat bunched up in the other.

"You look like a disaster," he commented.

"Quiet, I'm thinking," she said absently, gnawing on her bottom lip. After a moment she nodded and looked over at him. "What'd you say?" she asked, and he rolled his eyes and came up off the door.

"C'mere," he said, gesturing her over.

It took some juggling, but eventually, she managed to shrug into her coat with his help, and step into her shoes. When she stooped down to pick up the duffle bag again, he stopped her:

"Here's an idea," he said, "leave your stuff here. I'll take care of it for you, and next time you decide to accept my hospitality, you'll have a change of clothes."

She raised an eyebrow.

"'Next time'?" she dryly repeated. "Who said anything about a next time?"

"A guy can dream, right?" he asked with a shrug, and she laughed.

"Fine, I guess," she agreed, and shoved the duffle bag over so it was out of the way.

"Sure you got everything?"

"Uh-huh—aren't you going to wear a coat?" she asked.

"No."

"It's cold outside."

"I know."

"Really cold," she emphasized.

"I know," he repeated. "The jacket's lined."

She frowned at him.

"You'll freeze."

"It's not snowing."

"Yet."

"Tokio, I don't need a coat," he said patiently.

"Fine," she said, tone telling him she clearly did not believe him.

She went to reach for the door knob, and he took hold of her wrist and edged her closer.

"So," he said conversationally, grinning, "you have hooker boots."

Tokio groaned and hung her head.

"I'm going to kill Sada," she said wearily, and his grin widened considerably.

"From an old costume," he continued. "You gonna be wearing the costume Saturday night?"

"No," she muttered, "I'd be arrested for indecent exposure."

"Is that right?" he asked, _very_ interested now, and Tokio sent him a flat look.

"This is exactly why I call you a pervert," she said.

"I didn't say anything," he returned mildly.

"But you're _thinking_ it."

"Oh you have no _idea_."

Tokio whacked his shoulder and he just grinned at her.

"Are you wearing the hooker boots Saturday?" he asked.

She sent him a sullen look that he took to mean yes.

"What're the odds I can get you to wear that skirt I like with them?"

"None."

He frowned at her.

"Why not?"

"I'll freeze!"

"Not if you wear a coat," he pointed out, tugging on the lapel of her coat to illustrate.

"_No_."

"All right—what're the odds I can get you to wear the hooker boots and the skirt for me in the privacy of my apartment?"

"Also none."

He sent her a sour look.

"You're a lot more uptight than I expected, you know," he said.

"And you're a lot kinkier than I expected," she replied.

"I like your legs," he said, then sent her a wolfish grin. "I'm sort of fond of the rest of you too."

She blushed and whacked his shoulder again.

"Stop that," she said, and he leaned over and kissed her.

She immediately put her arms around his neck and somewhere in the back of his mind her quick change from annoyed to interested amused him to no end.

"Been waitin' to do that," he murmured, smiling against her mouth.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" she asked.

He nibbled on her lower lip, expression mischievous.

"These things take finesse and timing, Chiisai," he instructed and she rolled her eyes.

"Ahou," she muttered, then kissed him, hard. "Come on—I'd hate for you to be late on my account."

"Oh believe me, I have no problem with that," he assured, and she shook her head.

"I'm afraid of what you'll be like forty years from now," she said. "You'll be Super Pervert."

"Oh only about you," he assured. "Especially if you ever get around to wearing those hooker boots with that skirt."

Tokio sighed.

_Sada, you're sooooo dead…._

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 20: Puttin' It All Together:_

"You're full of shit," Saitou said at long last.

"To the brim," Kenshin agreed.

Chou sent them both a very offended look.

"Is this how you guys treat all your informants?" he asked.

---

The little woman in the pantsuit and coat made the decision for him when she launched herself at him, grabbed him by the shirt front, jerked him forward and proceeded to very enthusiastically "thank" him. Hijikata coughed and averted his eyes.

"Think I'll get a cup of coffee," he said pretty much to himself, since neither of the other occupants in the room were listening.

---

"What—_how_ does that make _sense_?" he demanded.

"Oh how the hell should I know?" Okita replied. "I don't speak or think in Idiot."

---

He kissed her forehead.

"I'll give you Wu's head for Christmas," he promised.

"Yur a true romantic, aren'cha?" she drawled.

"I have my moments," he returned with a shrug.

* * *

**IMPORTANT!** Next Sunday's post will be late (again, but I won't get into that or you'll have to sit through a rant about how much ass FFdotNet sucks), as I will be going to Homestead, Florida (which is nowhere near unincorporated Miami-Dade County, just my luck) very early on Sunday morning for a project for my Asian Religions lecture, because my prof couldn't find a temple that was actually _in_ the Everglades as opposed to being on the fringes of it. Though, all things considered, I suppose that could be a worse scenario. Long story short, I will be posting Sunday night. Just so y'all know. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was enjoyable. And if it wasn't, I sincerely hope you had lots of liquor to dull the pain. And if you didn't, you should have come to my house—I'd have gladly shared my Jack & Coke with you. 


	20. Puttin' It All Together

(sigh) I miscalculated. So I'm later than I thought I'd be (again). "Best laid plans" and all that. Boogers. Anyway, long story short, I got back later than I thought I would and didn't have the time to post, as evil evil schoolwork kept me preoccupied. Only two more weeks, though; hopefully I'll survive….

**_I_ AM CONFUZZLED.** Either the hit counter is off (totally possible, considering it's FFdotNet; yes, I'm still nursing something of a grudge), or people didn't read the note I put at the top of Chapter 19 (also totally possible), because the hits on Chapter 18 are lagging behind 19 by 70+. Hm. Very strange.

**THIS WEEK, ANOTHER DOUBLE SHOT!** Yes, that's right, I'm givin' you two chapters again in the place of one. Why? Because I felt like it. And also because 21 picks up more or less where 20 leaves off, like 18 & 19 followed each other. So enjoy!

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Twenty: Puttin' It All Together_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

At first, Saitou was sure that Chou was kidding him.

He really should have known better.

The punk strolled into the police station early Friday morning and asked to speak to Saitou. Upon being told that Saitou was still on surveillance duty, he decided not to wait around for the man he privately referred to as "Psycho Cop" to arrive, and went looking for him. He assumed Saitou was still on surveillance duty at that Wu guy's place, so that's where he went, and sure enough he found Saitou and Kenshin parked across the way from the house he'd broken into a few days prior.

Kenshin was trying to shoo a dog away from the car, and judging by the weary look on his face and the annoyed one on Saitou's, it wasn't going too well.

The mutt was sniffing the car and outright ignoring the redhead, who was standing nearby and attempting to gently shove the dog away with his foot. The dog simply planted himself a little more firmly and continued his inspection of the car. Saitou was sitting in the car, watching Kenshin with a look on his face that made Chou shudder; he was _so_ freakin' glad he had good news for that guy….

Just as Chou walked up, Saitou appeared to have had enough: he threw the door open, got out, walked around to the front of the car, reached down, grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and dragged him away from the car and shoved him away. The dog looked very offended by this treatment until he met Saitou's glare. Then, the dog—now properly cowed—quickly turned and shot off in the opposite direction and Saitou turned and began back for the car, expression disgusted as he wiped his hand off on his jeans.

"This one would have gotten him away in another few minutes," Kenshin said.

"Oh shut up," Saitou snapped. "If you'd done what I told you to do in the first place, it wouldn't have taken so damn long."

"This one didn't feel like getting bitten by a stray," Kenshin snapped back.

"And did you see him bite me?" Saitou challenged.

"The dog ain't stupid enough t' bite Psycho Cop," Chou drawled, and the two men realized they were no longer alone.

"Come to visit me Chou?" Saitou asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Sort of," Chou replied, hands in his pockets.

Saitou jerked his thumb in the direction of the car.

"Get in," he ordered, and five minutes later, Chou was settled down quite comfortably in the backseat of the unmarked car, and Saitou and Kenshin were staring at him in disbelief.

"You're full of shit," Saitou said at long last.

"To the brim," Kenshin agreed.

Chou sent them both a very offended look.

"Is this how you guys treat all your informants?" he asked.

"You honestly expect us to believe they're living down the street from the museum?" Kenshin asked.

"Yeah," Chou said, idly scratching his nose. "They got a great view of the place too."

"You were there?" Saitou asked.

"Well yeah, how'd you think I got the envelope to 'em?"

Kenshin and Saitou exchanged considering looks.

"What are the odds?" Kenshin asked.

"With those two, sixty-forty," Saitou said.

"So…?"

Saitou glared at Chou, who put up both hands palm up and shrugged, then sighed and picked up the handset of his radio:

"This is Saitou," he said. "We've just received information on the whereabouts of Hiruma Kihei and Hiruma Gohei. Copy?"

The answer came immediately:

"We copy sir. What action do you—"

"They are to be immediately picked up," Saitou interrupted, then looked over his shoulder at Chou and held out the handset. "Address," he said, and the blonde cheerfully grinned and reached forward and took the handset from Saitou and rattled off the address for the man on the other end.

"Have Okita take three units over there," Saitou said, "and I want to be notified the moment they're in custody."

"Yes sir, Saitou-san."

And lo and behold, thirty minutes later, the radio crackled to life and Okita cheerfully said,

"Better call Tokio-san, Hajime—Dumb and Dumber just ran outta luck."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saying that Tokio took the news very well was akin to saying the Sun was "kind of warm."

"ENISHI!" she screamed.

Enishi and Kamatari, fearing the worst, came running, yelling what was the matter, and when they burst into Tokio's office they found her sitting on the floor in front of her desk, laughing and crying, phone off the hook on the floor next to her.

"Oh gods," Kamatari said, rushing forward. "Oh honey, it's okay, come on, we'll get you some help, don't cry—"

"They caught them!" Tokio shouted, smiling. "They caught the Hirumas!"

Kamatari and Enishi exchanged a dumbfound look, and then both men squatted down in front of Tokio. Enishi grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her a little.

"Really?" he asked, voice urgent. "For real?"

"Really! For real!"

He stared at her for a moment, then let out a shout that people out in the street heard, grabbed Tokio in a bear hug and joined her in laughing like a lunatic when they fell over on the floor. Kamatari shook his head at the two of them, but he was smiling. It had been a long time since they'd gotten any real good news, and he supposed that completely losing their minds was acceptable when you paused to consider that fact.

He caught the sound of a very concerned-sounding man asking if Tokio-dono was all right, and realized there was someone still on the line. So he crawled around the duo, who were still laughing and crying, picked up the phone and stuck a finger in his other ear and said,

"Tokio-chan's celebrating right now—who's this?"

"Himura Kenshin," came the voice, still sounding worried. "Are you sure she's all right? There's an awful lot of yelling going on over there."

Tokio and Enishi were now sitting up and had their arms slung over each others' shoulders and were singing. Kamatari couldn't for the life of him figure out what song they were butchering.

"She's fine—she's singing now," Kamatari explained.

"Oh." Kenshin replied, sounding dubious that that constituted as being "fine."

"Don't worry Himura-san, Tokio-chan's great—she just got the news she's been waiting for since this whole mess started." Kamatari assured. "I think she's entitled to a little silliness."

"Perhaps," Kenshin replied cautiously, his tone still telling Kamatari that the officer had his doubts but wasn't inclined toward sharing them. "Er, would you please let Tokio-dono know that once she's done…celebrating…we need her to come down to the precinct to i.d. the suspects and make sure we have the right men?"

"Don't worry about it," Kamatari said. "I'll tell her. Expect a huge gift from her for this too," he added.

"We're supposed to do this, though," Kenshin protested. "It's our job."

"Doesn't matter," Kamatari said. "Tokio-chan believes in positive reinforcement in a big way. So don't be surprised if she names one of her kids after you or something."

Kenshin snorted.

"Yeah, Saitou'd really go for that idea," he muttered.

Kamatari's eyebrows rose—the relationship had progressed _that_ far already?

The two exchanged polite good-byes, and then Kamatari hung up Tokio's phone and looked over at Enishi and Tokio. The two were now dancing around the room, still laughing.

"I work with crazy people," Kamatari calmly decided. Then he shrugged and rose. "Ah well—when in Rome." He slipped over to where Enishi and Tokio were, tapped Tokio's shoulder and, grinning, asked,

"May I cut in?"

"You stay the hell away from me pervert!"

"Aw—I wanna celebrate too! Don't be so mean Enishi-chan!"

"Don't call me that! Oi! Get away from—no Tokio, don't leave! Damn it Tokio!"

"La la la la la la—I can't hear you! Do your stuff Kamatari-chan."

"Come on Enishi-chan, let's dance!"

"Tokio you raging bitch get back over here! TOKIO!"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Twenty minutes later, Tokio and Enishi ran into the lobby of the Bunkyo Ward police station and grabbed the first police officer they saw.

"Criminal investigations?" Enishi asked.

"Third floor," the startled man said.

"Thank you!" Tokio called over her shoulder as she and Enishi dashed for the stairs.

The man stared after them, bemused.

"Huh," he said finally, scratching his head. "Well that was weird."

Tokio and Enishi pounded up the stairs and past several very startled and surprised men and women until they got to the third floor, whereupon they then went looking for criminal and soon found it. When they walked in, Tokio immediately spotted Kenshin—that red hair drew the eye like a magnet in this sea of dark heads.

"Himura-san!" she called, waving.

"Of course," Enishi muttered, and Tokio took a moment to glare up at him.

"Be nice or I'll hurt you," she promised.

"Can I ignore him?"

"Only if you promise to ignore him nicely."

"Fine, deal."

They made their way over to Kenshin, who looked surprised but pleased to see them.

"Oh good—you received this one's message," he said with a hesitant smile.

Tokio returned the smile then startled the hell out of him by throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing the life out of him. He stumbled back into a desk and his hands automatically came up to steady her. His eyes also automatically searched the room for Saitou, because if the man saw this, Kenshin would have (if he was lucky) a one second head-start before Saitou came after him. To his immense relief, Saitou was nowhere to be found.

"You wonderful wonderful men!" Tokio said, and Kenshin flushed.

"It was nothing Tokio-dono—we mostly have an informant to thank."

Tokio finally let go of him and moved back, and Kenshin was finally able to breathe easily and not worry that Saitou was going to suddenly pop up from somewhere (he had that tendency; he also had the tendency of popping up when you least wanted him around) and Gatotsu his head off.

Kenshin knew he'd do it too, and to hell with the witnesses.

"May I meet him?"

Kenshin had a vision of Tokio hugging Chou. He then had a vision of Saitou finding out about it and promptly killing Chou with extreme prejudice.

"Er…afraid not, Tokio-dono…the informant's no longer around," Kenshin lied. "If you would please come to the observation room and identify the men we arrested?" he asked, gesturing toward a corridor.

"Absolutely," Tokio said cheerfully, looping her arm through Enishi's. "Lead the way Himura-san."

Kenshin nodded and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't bothered to look into the office not two steps to her left, where Okita was sitting with a hand-cuffed Chou, waiting for the punk's attorney. Then, before it occurred to her to do that, Kenshin started walking, and Tokio fell into step behind him, tugging a reluctant Enishi along.

Chou watched them disappear with interest, then turned to Okita, who was sitting at his desk, feet on top of it and hands clasped behind his head. He was moving one of his feet in time with the whining sound he dared to call music coming from the CD player in the corner.

"Who's the chick?" he asked.

"Don't even think about it Chou-kun," Okita said with an easy smile. "She's property of the Wolf of Bunkyo Ward."

Chou looked horrified.

"_She's_ with Psycho Cop?!?"

"Uh-huh."

"Aw that ain't right. That just ain't right!"

Okita's grin widened.

"Ain't life a bitch, Chou-kun?"

"A huge one," Chou muttered, still looking horrified. "Damn. That's not fair—she couldn't a done somethin' so bad in a past life that she's gotta deal with him in this one."

Okita snorted in amusement.

"She _wants_ to deal with him," he said. "She _likes_ it."

Chou stared at him, then looked in the direction Tokio had disappeared in.

"Poor thing—she's crazy."

Simultaneously, though neither was aware of it, both Saitou and Tokio sneezed.

"You gettin' a cold?" Enishi asked, frowning at her; Kenshin began searching his pockets for a handkerchief.

Tokio sniffled. "No, I'm okay," she said. She smiled at Kenshin. "So where are they?"

Kenshin sighed, then continued on toward the observation room. He opened the door, and when he did, the young man manning the camera and recording systems looked over his shoulder.

"Oh good," he said. "You gonna question 'em now?"

Kenshin shook his head, motioned for Tokio and Enishi to come in.

"Okita isn't free yet. Once he is, we'll start."

"Where's Okita-san?" Tokio asked. "I want to thank him too."

"He's…taking care of some loose ends," Kenshin returned, not really lying, because Chou was technically a loose end. "He should be done shortly. In the mean time, Tokio-dono, if you would be so kind…?"

Tokio and Enishi turned to the glass and looked. On the other side, a large man with dark hair and a beard sat, sweating profusely and fidgeting in extreme nervousness in the chair he was sitting in.

"That's Gohei," Tokio immediately said, nodding. "He's the younger brother."

"He's all bark and no bite," the young officer commented with a snort. "I heard up until they cuffed him, he was talkin' real big, but he was blubbering like a baby by the time Lieutenant Okita dragged his ass in—oh sorry ma'am," he sheepishly added, remembering Tokio was in the room after the fact.

She smiled at him.

"No harm done," she cheerfully said. She looked at Kenshin. "Where's the other one?"

"One room over," Kenshin said.

"Then let's go, shall we?" Tokio replied, looping her arm through Enishi's.

"If there wasn't glass between us," Enishi muttered, glaring at Gohei.

"Cheer up Enishi," Tokio said, patting his arm. "Hajime's probably going to make them both crap themselves in terror when interrogation time comes."

Enishi shrugged, though he was still scowling.

"I guess," he said. He sighed. "Well whatever—come on, let's go."

Tokio patted his arm again, then turned to Kenshin and smiled.

"If you'll lead the way, Himura-san?" she prompted.

Kenshin led them to the next room, and sure enough Gohei's older brother Kihei was sitting on the other side of the glass. He was a great deal calmer than his brother, but he was by no means unaffected.

"He's going to be harder to crack, I think," the officer sitting in the observation room manning the camera and recording systems said to the three. He was older than the other officer watching Gohei. "It's a good thing Okita-kun separated them the way he did, before they had a chance to corroborate their stories—this one looks like a sneaky bastard—sorry ma'am."

Tokio smiled and waved the apology away.

"Don't worry," she assured. "How long has he been sitting in there?"

"Almost an hour. Okita-kun wants to let 'em sweat a little while. And up until ten or fifteen minutes ago, this guy looked like he didn't have a care in the world. But I think all the waiting's starting to get him a little antsy—he's been fidgeting with his hands every now and then."

"Okita-san is an excellent officer," Tokio said, smiling widely and looking happier than Kenshin could remember ever seeing her look since this had all started.

The older officer grinned.

"Yeah, he's pretty damn good—I guess that's the reason Saitou-san sent him to grab these bozos. He knew Okita-kun wouldn't screw it up."

Enishi sighed, his face no longer as tight as it had been since this had all started.

"Thank the gods this nightmare's half over," he said. He looked over at Tokio. "You know we're gonna have to celebrate the hell out of this, right?"

"Absolutely," she agreed, nodding. "But first, there's someone I need to see."

Kenshin and Enishi immediately knew exactly who she was talking about, and Kenshin smiled while Enishi rolled his eyes, but he was smirking.

"Please come this way Tokio-dono," Kenshin said, opening the door and gesturing out it. "This one will show you to where Saitou is."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Jesus Saitou-kun," Hijikata said mildly, frowning, as he passed the other man the box of tissues the chief kept on his desk.

"Sorry sir," Saitou muttered, accepting the box.

"That was one hell of a sneeze," Hijikata remarked. "Somebody really doesn't like you."

"Trying to figure out who would take too long," Saitou said, ripping a tissue out of the box and wiping his hand with a distasteful expression on his face, before going back to giving his report.

Hijikata smiled but didn't reply, knowing that was true—Saitou was a rather gifted individual in that he managed to rub ninety-nine percent of people the wrong way within five seconds of meeting them. In extreme cases, it only took two seconds. Which was why the men who reported directly to Saitou numbered a grand total of three.

Okita and Aoshi were unique in that Saitou didn't really have much of an adverse affect on them. Kenshin and Saitou "got along" because Hijikata made them. Everyone else in the criminal investigations department—hell, in the whole precinct—gave Saitou wide berth out of general dislike mixed in with a liberal dose of pure unadulterated fear, because Saitou could be very scary when he wanted to be.

Which was most of the time.

And that was why Hijikata was—understandably—surprised when the door to his office clicked open and a woman with large dark eyes and bangs that were too long and obstructing her view poked her head in. She blew her bangs up and out of her eyes, caught sight of Saitou and smiled in honest delight, and Hijikata's jaw didn't drop open in shock because he was far too professional to react quite that blatantly.

Saitou's reaction was to stare at the woman in incredulity, and if Hijikata hadn't been so astonished by the woman, he would have laughed at the younger man's expression, because it was truly a Kodak moment if ever Hijikata had seen one.

"What are you doing here?" Saitou asked, sounding as incredulous as he looked.

"Himura-san said I had to come make sure you'd caught the right guys," she said happily. She finally noticed Hijikata and bowed low. "Hello Hijikata-san, sir."

It took a few seconds for him to recognize the voice—polite, naturally low-pitched, cheery but still professional—as being Takagi Tokio's.

"Takagi-san," he said finally, standing and returning her bow. "We meet at long last."

She smiled at him.

"May I come in?"

"Absolutely," Hijikata immediately said, waving her forward. "Saitou-kun was just giving me a report on the Hirumas."

Tokio stepped into the office and shut the door behind her, grinning at Saitou the whole time, and his assistant inspector was starting to look a little uncomfortable with her attention. In fact, if Hijikata hadn't known for a fact that Saitou was the most inhuman human the world had ever known, he would have sworn the younger man was not only nervous, but suffering the onset of a rather debilitating bout of embarrassment.

He wasn't sure what was wrong with the man, but Hijikata _was_ sure that wasn't the beginnings of a blush on the Wolf of Bunkyo Ward's face.

Tokio's gaze returned to Hijikata.

"I'm very sorry to interrupt, sir, but I just wanted to thank Saitou-san," she said.

"Oh well that's understandable," Hijikata returned graciously. He smiled. "Go right ahead, Takagi-san."

Her smile widened, and then she turned her gaze back to Saitou, who stood rigid, a very queer look on his face, like he wasn't sure if he should jump out the window behind Hijikata's desk…or jump Tokio. The little woman in the pantsuit and coat made the decision for him when she launched herself at him, grabbed him by the shirt front, jerked him forward and proceeded to very enthusiastically "thank" him. Hijikata coughed and averted his eyes.

"Think I'll get a cup of coffee," he said pretty much to himself, since neither of the other occupants in the room were listening.

He left the office, careful to close the door behind him, and decided to give Saitou five minutes alone with Tokio. It wasn't professional, maybe, but Hijikata wasn't enough of a bastard to deprive one of his men of a "thank you" like the one Saitou was currently getting.

Saitou, in the mean time, was torn between horrified embarrassment over the fact that Tokio had basically mauled him in front of his superior officer and hell of a lot of satisfaction with the fact that Tokio had basically mauled him in front of his superior officer.

The fact that he was enjoying himself really wasn't helping him figure out which one was the most appropriate response.

When they finally came up for air, Tokio was smiling at him like he was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her, and he was feeling very off-balance and confused.

And also, you know, wondering if his commanding officer would mind very much if he nailed Tokio right here right now.

"You're the most wonderful man on the face of the planet," she told him, punctuating each word with a kiss.

Saitou figured he could live pretty happily with that assessment.

"Okay," he replied, and Tokio laughed and kissed him again, hard.

"So when do you want me to play hopscotch in that skirt you like?" she asked, and he stared at her, stunned.

"Huh?" he finally asked, and her grin widened.

"When do you want me to play hopscotch in that skirt you like?" she repeated.

"Would now be good?"

She rolled her eyes.

"No, Hajime, now would not be good."

"Are you serious about the skirt? Because it's very cruel to play with a man's fantasies like that."

"Of course I'm serious," she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck and still smiling. "I figure you deserve some kind of reward, right?"

"Absolutely," he agreed immediately. "I _absolutely_ deserve some kind of reward."

She threw back her head and laughed, and he grinned and thought it would be worth getting chewed out for using Hijikata's office to have sex with her.

It wouldn't have been the worst thing he'd ever done, anyway.

"You're amazing," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed nonchalantly, and she laughed again and leaned her forehead against his. She smiled at him, eyes locked with his, and Saitou finally decided which of the two conflicting feelings he'd felt when she'd thrown herself at him was the most appropriate response:

"So how pissed do you think the chief'd be if he came back and found us using his desk in a very inappropriate manner?" he wryly asked, smirking.

She rolled her eyes, but he saw it for what it was, an automatic response to his occasionally vulgar remarks.

"Very, you pervert," she said. "You have no shame, do you?"

"None," he assured her before he kissed her again.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Aoshi had just returned from lunch with Misao and settled down in the security room in front of the monitors, when the phone began ringing and Takeda answered it. He wasn't very surprised when he was informed that the call was for him, and he accepted the phone:

"Shinomori," he said.

"We got 'em," Okita happily informed him, and Aoshi's eyes widened.

"Who?" he asked urgently, and Takeda's attention left the monitors and went to Aoshi.

"Dumb and Dumber," Okita said. "And you won't believe what these retards had to say."

"You already questioned them?"

"Yeah, I got the younger one, Dumber—and you shoulda heard him! Ooo, did he sing! And so sweetly I'm surprised I don't have cavities. Apparently, he finds me quite terrifying."

"What about the other one?"

"Himura's got him," was the reply. "Girly man should make him piss himself if he keeps being a stubborn ass."

"What about Saitou-san?"

Aoshi wasn't expecting the loud guffaw that immediately followed the inquiry, and he raised an eyebrow and wondered what about that question had been so funny.

"He's busy right now," Okita said, still laughing—the man sounded like he was ready to start crying.

"With what?"

"With one very happy Tokio-san."

"Oh." Aoshi couldn't keep from smiling. "I see."

"Hijikata says Tokio-san jumped him," Okita confided, and Aoshi coughed to keep from laughing out loud, out of respect for his superior officer and his temporary "boss." "They've been in the chief's office for almost twenty minutes now. Most of the department's laying bets on when they'll come out and how they'll look."

It was getting harder to not start laughing, and Aoshi cleared his throat in a rather desperate attempt to keep from doing that. It was really discourteous, not just to Saitou but also to Tokio, but a guy could only take so much.

"So what do you need me to do?" he asked in an effort to keep from giving in.

Okita immediately became serious, and Aoshi privately admired how quickly he managed that:

"Grab Nakajima and haul that rat-bastard over here," he said with a certain amount of satisfaction in his voice. "Dumber says Nakajima provided them with the codes to fuck up the cameras and the security system."

Aoshi's smile turned cold.

"Did he now?" he asked, eyes narrowing. "Well well well. Why doesn't that surprise me."

"And that ain't all," Okita continued. "Apparently, Nakajima's the one tipped Wu off about the Shinuchi."

"So they _were_ after it," Aoshi murmured. Then he frowned. "But if that's what they were after, why didn't they take it?"

Okita's sigh was very resigned, and Aoshi had a terrible feeling he was about to hear something he wasn't going to like.

He was right:

"Remember when we said they couldn't possibly be that stupid?" Okita asked.

"Yeah," Aoshi replied warily.

"We were wrong—they actually _are_ that stupid."

There was a pause.

"Please tell me this is a joke," Aoshi said finally, very calmly.

"Oh how I wish I could," Okita muttered. "The dumb fucks couldn't remember which katana they were supposed to steal. The fact that they were looking for it in the dark didn't really help, I guess. So instead of taking all the katana, which is what any self-respecting criminal would have done, they panicked and started breaking shit."

Aoshi knew he looked incredulous—he could feel it.

"What—_how_ does that make _sense_?" he demanded.

"Oh how the hell should I know?" Okita replied. "I don't speak or think in Idiot."

Aoshi screwed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead.

"My head hurts," he muttered finally, and Okita snorted.

"How do you think I felt when I heard it?" he muttered, then sighed. "But yeah, grab Nakajima. And if you wanna rough him up a little bit too, you won't hear any complaints from us."

Ordinarily, Aoshi might have lectured Okita on encouraging such unprofessional behavior, but for once, the younger man was of the opinion that Okita had the right idea.

"Oh don't worry, I'll grab the bastard," Aoshi assured with a cool smirk. "And if he should happen to fall on my fist once or twice, well, you'll understand that it was completely accidental, of course."

Okita laughed.

"Fall on your fist, huh?" he repeated. "I like it—I'm gonna use that one next time Himura starts in on me."

They ended the call, and Aoshi looked over at Takeda.

"I'm going to arrest Nakajima and take him to the precinct—he's been implicated in the plot to rob the museum," he informed the older man. "Please stay here, Takeda-san, and inform my men when they check in."

"Will you be all right arresting him alone?" Takeda asked. "I don't mean to be insulting, Shinomori-san, but Nakajima-san is quite crafty."

"I won't be arresting him alone," Aoshi assured him on his way out. "I'll have some help."

It took less than a minute to tell Misao what was going on, and before he was even finished she had grabbed him around the wrist and was tugging him towards Nakajima's office.

"Let's nab the creep," Misao said.

"Good girl," Aoshi replied approvingly.

When they arrived at Nakajima's office, the head curator was just finishing up his lunch. Aoshi didn't bother knocking—he threw the door open and shook out his hand cuffs.

"Nakajima Uryuu, you're under arrest for conspiracy to commit robbery," he calmly said as Nakajima gaped at him, and a deviously grinning Misao advanced on the man. "You have the right to remain silent—"

"You son of a bitch, you can't arrest me!" Nakajima exploded, shooting out of his seat. "This is that Takagi bitch's idea of a joke, isn't it?!?"

"—but apparently lack the ability," Aoshi finished with a sigh, rolling his eyes. He looked at Misao.

"Would you like to do the honors?" he asked.

She beamed at him and nodded enthusiastically.

"With pleasure," she said, obvious relish in her voice, and Aoshi threw the cuffs to her. She deftly caught them, then turned back to Nakajima, grinning evilly now.

"Never underestimate the strength of a pissed off woman, Nakajima-san," she sweetly advised a second before she tackled him to the floor in a completely unnecessary but highly satisfying to watch maneuver.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Another round on the house!" the bartender bellowed, an announcement that elicited cheers and whoops from a group of very liquored-up, happy people in The Gutter Ball later that evening.

The four officers, Misao, Tokio, Enishi and Kamatari, along with a few of the assistants and Anji and his men had retired to The Gutter Ball after the museum had closed for business to celebrate with a hell of a lot of booze. When the group had arrived, the patrons of the bar and the bartender had loudly and enthusiastically congratulated Saitou and his team, as the Hiruma brothers' arrest had been plastered all over the TV and radio stations since two. And they'd all been toasting the event since arriving at the bar.

For his part, Saitou was feeling quite satisfied with the day's events—particularly since they were partly to thank for the fact that Tokio was currently sitting in his lap. It was his opinion that anything that caused that to happen was a very good thing.

He wasn't drunk yet, and he wasn't planning on getting that way, but he had a really good buzz going that he was enjoying. Tokio was slightly more buzzed than he was—he'd been making sure she didn't drink too much so as to avoid a fight, because it seemed like every time he and Tokio were around alcohol, a fight broke out—which was completely fine by him; she'd plopped herself down in his lap all by herself, no prompting needed, and he could only think that she had consumed just enough beer to make her lose a little of that repressiveness that often got him into trouble with her when he answered her honestly. The only thing better than Tokio in his lap of her own volition was the fact that everyone else was too wasted to give him shit about it, so he was free to enjoy her spontaneous show of…well, whatever it meant when a woman sat in your lap without you needing to put her there yourself.

Across the table, Kenshin and Anji had their arms slung over each others' shoulders and were drunkenly butchering the song playing from the juke box. Misao was switching her empty glasses with Okita's full ones while Aoshi distracted him (unintentionally; Misao was just taking advantage of her boyfriend's talkativeness), and Enishi and Kamatari were engaged a very heated drinking contest that had started when Enishi had said something about "the Queen" not being able to drink like a man. The assistants and Anji's men were just as plastered, if not more so, and everyone in the bar was helping them celebrate, either by buying them drinks or joining in on the drunken revelry.

Tokio grabbed his attention again when she nuzzled his cheek.

"Yeah?" he drawled.

"Want s'more?" she asked, holding up the bottle of saké.

He smirked. "You really have to ask?" he replied, raising one eyebrow, and she grinned and kissed him, right there in front of the gods and everyone for maybe the eighth time that night. He guessed, anyway—it was hard to keep track of that and how much he'd had to drink at the same time.

"Jerk," she teased, pouring some more liquor into his glass with a hand that never wavered once, and Saitou grinned when he saw it—figures he'd find a woman who could more or less keep up with his drinking.

Eventually, though, they had to cut the celebration short and leave, because everyone had to go to work the next day, so they paid what they had to—which wasn't a lot, thank the gods, because most of their liquor had been provided for them—and then bundled themselves up and stumbled out into the street, drunk and giddy and singing off-key and laughing. Saitou and Tokio helped keep each other standing more or less still; he hadn't thought he'd had quite that much to drink until he'd stood up and weaved noticeably to his right before straightening up. Okita and Kamatari were holding up a completely smashed Enishi between the two of them, which would have been okay if both had been a smidge more sober; eventually, one of the two was going to sway too far in one direction and all three of them would end up sprawled in the gutter. Misao was tipsy, and much better off than Aoshi, who looked ready to pass out and kept mumbling that he was never going to drink ever again, _goddamn it_, if it was the last thing he ever did.

Anji and Kenshin were the only members of the group—well, besides Misao—who were pretty okay. Currently, the two men were consulting each other as to how they were going to take care of their inebriated comrades.

Saitou inhaled a very deep breath of the night air, and decided that would have been a spectacular idea if only the air in Tokyo wasn't so freaking toxic.

"Are ya drunk?" Tokio asked him from her spot under his arm, both holding onto him and holding him up.

"Some," he replied, and she giggled.

"I cou' tell," she informed him. "Y' stumble-ded outta the bar."

"You helped," he returned, rubbing an affectionate hand up and down her arm.

In fact, he was feeling unusually affectionate. Drinking didn't usually have that effect on him. What usually happened was he either became so mellow he was catatonic, or he became a fucking psychopath, and it was sort of like playing Russian roulette in that no one, not even Saitou, knew which of the two would be there at last call.

Then again, he thought when Tokio leaned up and kissed him, he didn't usually have a very affectionate Tokio with him when he was drinking. He immediately decided that he ought to have her around more often when she was like this, because it was even better than not giving a flying damn about anything.

"You're the best, didja know that?" she asked him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"I had my suspicions," he replied, and she laughed and nuzzled his cheek.

"Y' know what'd be even better'n this?" she asked.

"You going home with me tonight," he said without hesitation, and she rolled her eyes.

"You're drunk," she said.

"You'd be amazed how quick I can take care of that, Chiisai," he drawled with a smirk.

"I hafta go home t'night, letch," Tokio informed him, "because my mama called me and told me she's gonna make me a special dinner."

"It's midnight," he pointed out.

"I could still eat at midnight, it's not 'g'nst the law," she replied. "But I was gonna say somethin' an' now I forgot."

"Maybe it wasn't important," he offered.

She shook her head.

"Nu-uh, it was _ver'_ import'nt," she insisted. "An' I's gonna tell y' earlier but I forgot."

"If you keep forgetting it it can't be all that—"

"Ah-ha!" Tokio suddenly loudly said, brightening. "I 'member now! I's gonna say, that if you caught Wu tomorrow, it'd be even better'n this."

Saitou was inclined to agree with that assessment.

"Yeah," he said.

"But's not gonna happen, right?" she asked, voicing essentially what he was thinking, except she was more coherent, which was a truly scary thought.

"Odds aren't good, no," he agreed.

"But you'll get the sneaky little bastard soon, right?"

He smiled faintly.

"Trust me Chiisai?"

"Abstulutely. Wait. Abstutloley. Oh hells, tha's not right either—screw it, you know what I mean," she said finally, making an impatient gesture with her hand, or at least it would have been impatient if she hadn't been as into her cups as she was. Mostly, it looked like drunken sign language, and Saitou got the oddest feeling that he knew what she was signing.

…Er, maybe that was the saké talking.

He kissed her forehead.

"I'll give you Wu's head for Christmas," he promised.

"Yur a true romantic, aren'cha?" she drawled.

"I have my moments," he returned with a shrug.

"You're weird," she informed him.

"Very," he said, and she smiled and kissed him again.

Eventually, it was decided that people needed to start going home, so Saitou and Tokio had to quit making out in front of the gods and everyone because Anji was going to drive Kamatari, Enishi and Tokio to their respective homes in Enishi's car, as the large man was the only person good enough to drive. Saitou then had to help Kenshin with Okita, who had decided he wanted to sing one of his "country and western" favorites.

"I'm fucking breaking his CDs tomorrow," Saitou grunted as the officers staggered and swayed their way to the train station.

"This one'll help," Kenshin muttered, wincing when Okita jostled him roughly again. "Don't see why you can't carry him yourself," the redhead added, sending Saitou a vaguely resentful look.

"Because I'll fall over, and I'm not in the mood to smell like the gutters of Kabuki-cho," Saitou replied.

"Ya smell like laundry!" Okita announced, and Saitou paused, and Kenshin sent the drunk man a dubious look.

"'Laundry'," he repeated slowly.

"Damn straight," Okita said with a curt jerk of his head that would have landed him in those gutters Saitou didn't want to smell like, if Kenshin and Saitou hadn't grabbed him and pulled him back upright.

More or less.

"He is so trashed," Kenshin muttered.

"Am not," Okita slurred, offended. "Smell 'im if ya don' 'lieve me."

"No way," Kenshin and Saitou said at the same time.

"I'm not drunk enough to allow that kinda shit," Saitou added. "I will _never_ be drunk enough to allow that kinda shit."

"And this one isn't desperate enough," Kenshin said under his breath.

Saitou heard him anyway, and gifted him one of his more impressive glares.

"What?" the redhead asked, puzzled, and he wasn't faking it the way he usually did.

"Fuck it," Saitou said, "let's just get to the train station before it shuts down for the night. I'm not walking home from Shinjuku, and I don't have enough money to crash at a hotel."

"Show me the way t' go home," Okita began singing cheerfully, "I'm tired an' I wanna go t' bed; I hadda drink 'bout a hour ago, an' it went straight t' my head! Oh, show me the way t' go home—"

"The drunken classics," Saitou commented dryly, adjusting his friend's arm over his shoulders.

"C'mon Haji, sing it with me," Okita urged. "Y' know it, c'mon."

"Work on using your feet, Souji," Saitou advised, ignoring the request.

"I'll throw up on you," Okita warned. "Y' know I'll do it."

Saitou sighed wearily:

"Show me the way to go home," he began resignedly, and Okita immediately joined in, voice just as loud and cheerful as before, and Saitou had to grin a little.

Invariably, if Okita didn't pass out after a night of drinking (which was rare), he'd do one of two things: he'd either quote from _Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail_ (which they had spent one summer holiday memorizing, in English, just for the hell of it) or he'd begin singing, and if it wasn't one of his "country and western" songs, it was this one on endless loop until he passed out. If Saitou had had enough to drink, or if he wanted Okita to cooperate badly enough, he could usually be cajoled or coerced into joining in on it.

And so as the group made its unsteady way towards Shinjuku Station, Okita and Saitou and eventually Misao and Aoshi and Kenshin all sang the song over and over again, with Okita as their loud, slurring choir master.

And in the back of his mind, Saitou decided he was going to have to ask Tokio tomorrow night what the deal was with her smelling like laundry.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 21: Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll:_

When he'd finished his appraisal, he met her gaze.

"I think you should come in Chiisai," he said mildly. "To the bedroom. For the next couple of hours."

---

She sort of reminded him of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Except not really.

---

"I didn't see you if you didn't see me," Aoshi said finally.

A vision of having to sit with Misao the rest of the night should Tokio find out the younger couple was at the club flashed through his mind's eye:

"Deal," Saitou quickly agreed.

---

"When'd you change clothes?" he asked.

"When I woke up—by the way, you snore really loud."

A pause.

"I do not," he said, slightly offended.


	21. Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll

**This is the** **SECOND PART** **of a** **TWO PART** **post.** **Read** **CHAPTER TWENTY** **before reading** **THIS ONE.

* * *

**Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Ichiro & Jiro: mean first and second son, respectively. I only mention it because it will improve understanding of a remark made in passing (heh, mentioning a mention….)

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Twenty-One: Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio was still euphoric twenty-four hours later, and not even giving Akira the awful news about Nakajima's betrayal could dampen her enthusiasm.

Well, not a lot, anyway.

She'd visited early this morning, and both Tomoe and Akira had been ecstatic; they'd seen the news reports and received phone calls from Katsura and Takasugi. Tokio had felt terrible to have to ruin that. She knew Akira would suffer upon hearing of Nakajima's involvement—the curator had been working for the Kiyosato family since the museum had opened twenty-five years back, after all—and sure enough her cousin's face had been so horribly, painfully hurt and betrayed. Privately, Tokio told Tomoe of Wu's involvement (Tomoe hadn't been as surprised as Tokio had been expecting, which made her feel better about being the bearer of this particular bad news), and assured her that the officers were working on capturing him. Tomoe had seemed reassured, and who could blame her—they'd picked up the Hirumas fairly quickly, even with all the hiccups they'd encountered. So Tokio left the hospital feeling a little like a heel, but still so incredibly happy about yesterday that the feeling couldn't bring her down for long.

Her sunny mood had had a noticeable effect on the rep she met with later that afternoon. The man had become quite friendly and open after chatting with her for a few moments, and Tokio was crossing her fingers and hoping that would help.

So all in all, it had been a pretty good day. Not even wearing an indecently short skirt, her hooker boots, a shirt so thin it didn't qualify as a shirt, and more make up than she was used to having on, could change that.

She was currently walking to Saitou's apartment, and she was completely covered in a thick wool coat to protect against the wind. And also because she didn't want to attract attention.

It took her longer than usual to get to his apartment, because she was wearing the hooker boots and the sidewalks were slippery, and she didn't want to slip and fall and kill herself, or worse yet, flash the entire street, because with her luck that's exactly what would happen. She was happy, upon arriving, to be in time for the elevator, and five minutes later she was knocking on Saitou's door. When he opened it, she threw herself at him and kissed the breath out of him.

"You're freezing," he said when he was able to.

"It's cold out," she cheerfully said, nipping his bottom lip. "Oh, do you have a pair of gloves I could borrow? I forgot mine."

He sent her an exasperated look; she sent him a winning smile, then kissed him again, eyes twinkling and locked on his, and so she saw the exact moment when he decided to forgo a lecture.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, then stepped aside.

"Get in here woman." he growled with more than a little affection softening his tone.

She slipped in and he shut the door and left the entry, then paused when she made no move to remove her shoes and follow.

"What?" he asked, puzzled.

"It'd take too long to get back into these," she replied with a shrug, and he looked at her footwear and smirked when he realized what she was wearing.

"Are those the hooker boots?"

She sighed, eyes rolling heavenward.

"Yes," she said with a touch of exasperation.

The smirk widened.

"Let's see 'em," he said, folding his arms over his chest.

She flinched, startled, and stared at him with wide, surprised eyes.

"What?"

"Let's see 'em," he repeated.

"Hajime," she whined, flushing. "Come on."

"You either show me or I don't give you the gloves."

She glowered at him.

"You're going to see them eventually," she pointed out.

"Exactly. So you shouldn't be so weird about showing me now."

The glower deepened.

"How bad you want those gloves, Chiisai?"

"I hate you," she informed him coolly.

"Hooker boots," he replied, one eyebrow raised.

Tokio sighed, then unbuttoned the coat from top to bottom, and then held it open. She then finally looked up at him, blushing in earnest, more embarrassed than she'd been with him in some time.

His face was inscrutable as he eyed her. And it was a very intent perusal, one that made her blush deepen.

The shirt was black, very thin and sort of silky, made of some material Tokio couldn't identify. It was long-sleeved, which he couldn't see because she hadn't taken the coat off, and loose but not shapeless or baggy, which she thanked the gods for, because she had a feeling she'd have been in trouble if she'd been wearing a tight top. The skirt was the same one Sada had been wearing when Saitou had met her for the first time. The hooker boots were also black, thigh-high and shining dully, and fit like a glove.

All of it was Sada's doing.

When he'd finished his appraisal, he met her gaze.

"I think you should come in Chiisai," he said mildly. "To the bedroom. For the next couple of hours."

"Hajime!" she snapped, throwing the coat shut and griping the lapels tightly closed; he looked very disappointed when she did, and if she weren't so mortified she'd have been flattered.

"I don't think we're going to make it your sister's show, Tokio," he said with a predatory gleam in his eye. "In fact, I doubt very much you'll be leaving here for the next month, at least."

Tokio did some quick calculating, and deduced that her odds of getting out the door before he could grab her were very low, because not only was he a very determined pervert, he was a fast one to boot.

"I promised Sada I'd go tonight, Hajime," she began, frowning at him. "You were there, remember? And she's going to be pissed if we don't show up. Things will get very ugly very quickly once she figures out we never showed—and she _will_ show up here looking for us."

"Then she's going to be in for an eyeful," he replied with a grin that was best described as lecherous.

Tokio groaned and leaned her head back against the door and shut her eyes, face red.

"You're _such_ a letch," she moaned. "And _why_ does _no one_ believe me when I tell them how much of a letch you are?"

She realized that closing her eyes had been a gross miscalculation on her part, because when she opened them he was right there in front of her, and she was trapped between him and the door.

"Eep," she said quietly.

"I believe, Chiisai," he began, with that smirk that made her want to squirm because no man should look that good when he was being that insufferable (especially when he had lipstick smeared on his lips and chin), "that they'd say I was fully justified."

"And why is that?" she asked, a little wary; he was a devious bastard, and she was sure he was cooking up something to get her into the apartment.

"Because you, my dear, just killed about half my brain cells, with the little number you have on."

"Emphasis on 'little', right?" she asked, smiling a little—she'd figured she'd impressed him, but _wow_….

"_Much_ emphasis on 'little'," he agreed, leaning down and kissing her and making her forget she was supposed to be suspicious of his intent.

She remembered when his hand found its way to her butt:

She ripped her mouth away from his and sent him a warning look.

"Take it off or I'll break it off," she said, and he sent her another disappointed look.

"Spoilsport," he muttered, complying, then leaning down to kiss her hard.

"I'd like to see Sada's band play sometime tonight so she doesn't come after my head later," Tokio said when he straightened. "And that's not going to happen if you start getting all touchy-feely."

"You didn't mind it yesterday," he said mildly.

"I didn't have somewhere to be yesterday," she replied.

"So you're telling me I missed out on a golden opportunity yesterday?" he asked, looking so let down she laughed and leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"There is absolutely no way I would have let you do anything in your boss's office, Hajime."

"The door was closed." he pointed out in a rather juvenile fashion.

"Hajime," she said, exasperated. "Please get me the gloves."

He walked off, muttering, to do her bidding, and she sneaked a peek at his rear end as he went, because those jeans were definitely working for him, and she thought it was a terrible shame he couldn't wear them more often. When he came back, he had her gloves and his jacket in hand, and the lipstick was gone. He held them out to her, saying,

"They're probably ridiculously large, but I couldn't find anything smaller."

She shrugged and tugged them on.

"That's okay," she replied. She wiggled her fingers at him, grinning. "Better than nothing."

He grunted, shrugging into his jacket.

"Oi, button up your coat," he ordered. "The hell you're showing off that outfit on the street."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Hajime, you do realize I'm going to have to take the coat off when we get to the club, right?"

"No you're not," he said, and she sent him a flat look.

"You know, I've been wearing outfits like these to Sada's shows for a very long time, now," she said, an edge to her voice.

"Yeah, well, you're with me tonight. You wanna wear that around here, I got no complaints, but no one else sees you like that."

"You're being ridiculous!" she burst out, incredulous.

"You're not taking the coat off!" he shot back.

"The Neanderthal act is _not_ attractive, Hajime," she snapped. "Don't tell me what I can and cannot wear, because you haven't got the right to."

That brought him up short, and he glared at her but didn't say a word. They glowered at each other in silence for a long while, and then he very tightly said,

"Button up your coat."

"Fine, I will—but only because it's cold outside, and I'm not going to freeze to death just to spite you," she replied snootily, and he looked like he was going to strangle her for a moment.

He settled for grinding his back teeth together.

They walked to the station in silence, and Tokio held onto his arm because she didn't want to fall, and also because he was warm and even with her lined coat her teeth were chattering. Apparently, he was willing to let bygones be bygones, because he put his arm around her and tucked her close, and she was grateful because it put her that much closer to his warmth and because he smelled nice, clean and spicy.

He glared at every man on the train who so much as glanced in her direction, but she only rolled her eyes and tried to ignore it as best she could, and had a feeling she was going to be dealing with this a lot tonight.

She'd known this was a bad idea….

When they reached Shinjuku Station and got off, Tokio took him by the hand and guided him down the packed streets. Lucky for her, when people saw Saitou coming they moved, so she didn't have the usual trouble getting anywhere, and within fifteen minutes they had arrived at a fairly nondescript club two blocks from The Gutter Ball, where, Saitou informed her in passing, Okita had gone with Kenshin.

"Oh man I hope Sada doesn't get it into her head to go to a bar after the show," Tokio said, a little worried by that possibility because the odds of it happening were very, very good.

"You probably don't have to worry about it," he replied thoughtfully. "It doesn't take a lot to get Souji sloshed, so Himura should be dragging his ass back to the dormitories for him to sleep it off pretty soon, if he hasn't already."

"Hm," was Tokio's response, still looking a little worried. Saitou leaned down and kissed her because she looked cute (and he had not just thought that).

"When's the show gonna be over?"

"Probably around midnight," she replied, a tad dazed.

"They'll be long gone," he assured.

She nodded, then shook herself and grabbed his hand again and tugged him toward the back of the club.

"We have to put in an appearance before they start," she informed.

"How are we gonna do that?" he asked, and she threw a big grin over her shoulder at him.

"Backstage pass," she said, and he sent her a puzzled look.

As it turned out, Tokio was referring to herself when she said "backstage pass," because when the back door opened the man who'd opened it stopped scowling and smiled and greeted her warmly and asked how she was doing. Saitou grabbed Tokio and hauled her into his side and glared at the man to make his point, which he most certainly did, if the man's stuttering was any indication.

"Hajime, he's sixty-two-years-old," she said with all the patience she could muster which was a lot more than he'd thought she possessed.

"He's still a man," Saitou muttered.

"So why don't you get all Neanderthal when Himura-san and Okita-san and Shinomori-san are around?" she demanded.

"Because they know better." was the reply, and Tokio rolled her eyes and decided to just give up.

"Just don't hurt anyone," she said wearily.

"I don't make promises I can't keep, Chiisai."

"Ugh—just…try, all right? You can do that, right?"

"Fine."

"Ahou," she muttered under her breath.

They weaved their way around the cramped backstage and soon found Sada; Saitou knew who it was because Tokio's little sister's hair was like a beacon under the lighting, brighter than he'd believed possible.

"YOU'RE HERE!" Sada yelped, throwing herself at Tokio, and Tokio stumbled back into him; he took hold of her shoulders to keep her steady.

"Hey," was Tokio's reply, returning her sister's hug.

Sada kissed Tokio's cheek, then let go of her and attacked Saitou, and it took every ounce of will power he possessed not to back away or try to block her hug. He could have evaded her too, even as cramped and crowded as the backstage area was; fighting in a tight spot had been one of his areas of expertise back in his days with the department.

"And you brought Sexy-san!" she cheerfully said while she squeezed him—she was surprisingly strong for such a small woman.

"Well you were rather insistent," Tokio said with a droll smile.

"SIS!" came a sudden bellow. "Guys, Sis is here!"

Saitou did not like the sound of that.

As it turned out, he had every justification not to like it.

Two young men and a young woman appeared out of nowhere and attacked Tokio the way Sada had attacked him.

"Waaah! Sis!" one of the men, a bald man, yelped, latching onto Tokio.

"She's back, yay!" the other man, who had purple hair, shouted, also latching onto Tokio so that she was squished between them.

"Oi, get the fuck off her!" Saitou bellowed, and Sada laughed when the two men leapt away from Tokio as if she'd burned them.

"Ooo, Sexy didn't like that," she observed, still laughing.

The other woman rolled her eyes, stepped forward and hugged Tokio, who returned it; the two men watched Saitou warily and tried not to move too much; and Saitou glared at them in a way that told them that if they made one move he didn't like, he'd have no qualms about killing them dead. In the most painful way(s) possible, of course.

Sada took care of the introductions (Saitou took particular care to listen when she introduced the men).

The woman and band's drummer was named Inoue Etsu. She was very tall and very thin, almost as lanky as Saitou himself, with waist-length hair (and he was sort of relieved to find it plain old brunette-colored rather than something more dramatic and tear-inducing, like aqua) and sleepy eyes, and she held herself in a lazy sort of way that reminded him of a cat slinking around, confident in her abilities and survival. She was wearing a dark blue tube top masquerading as a skirt (that was his opinion, anyway), and a corset top, also in dark blue, edged with frilly black lace and silk ribbons. She was also barefoot (which he thought was…interesting…for lack of a better term), and had a smoker's voice, which he took to mean that she smoked. He was pleased when she proved him right, and he decided he liked her just fine when she casually struck a match against the bald guy's chest and made him yelp like a little girl.

The bald guy who yelped like a little girl (Saitou preferred to describe it as "shrieking like a little bitch," but that was just his preference) was named Endo Jiro, and played lead guitar. He was short, a little stocky and had a little footprint tattooed on the back of his neck. He was dressed in leather pants and a sleeveless black shirt and big ass black boots and all in all looked like the long-lost member of the Village People.

_I could_ **_totally_** _kick his ass_, Saitou decided.

The other man was skinny. Not lanky, like Saitou or Etsu, but skinny. According to Sada, the punk's name was Tojo Ichiro (she also noted that Ichiro was younger than Jiro, which was sort of funny given their names), and he played bass. His purple hair was sticking up in wild, spiky clumps, as if he'd just rolled out of bed and hadn't bothered to comb his hair…for the last eight months. He was wearing jeans (held up by a studded belt that was thicker than both his arms put together, which was fortunate because as sharp as his hip bones were they didn't have the means to hold up the jeans on their own) and a red shirt with an orange, screen-printed mandala on the front ("Amnesty International," Tokio explained upon seeing Saitou's sort-of-puzzled-but-still-very-dignified-of-course expression. "You support that charity?" Saitou had asked the punk, a little surprised and vaguely impressed that he was willing to give away his money. "Naw, he just liked the shirt," Sada cheerfully informed him before the punk could answer), and red Chucks that Saitou could see were meticulously maintained, because they looked brand new; the only reason he knew they weren't was because he noticed that the backs were worn down.

And then, there was Sada. She was wearing gold sequined hot pants (oh yes, hot pants, with tights) and a matching vest top and white boots with gold tassels. She sort of reminded him of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Except not really.

Her bright red hair combined with the gold sequins made her look like she was on fire—and the flames were blinding him.

"Wow," he said finally, upon getting a good look at her outfit. "Just…wow."

Sada beamed.

"Yay!" she said, clapping her hands excitedly. "I hoped you'd like it, Sexy-san. This is a very special show, you know—we started out in this club eight years back. It's like coming home when we play here."

Saitou nodded; Tokio smiled and began unbuttoning the coat. He noticed when she was shrugging out of it.

"Damn it Tokio," he began, more than a little pissed off.

"Oh be quiet," she interrupted, tugging the gloves off her hands and tucking them into one of the pockets of the coat, which Ichiro took from her and carefully set aside. "This is hardly the first time I've ever worn something like this."

He sent her a disgruntled look but didn't say anything because he didn't believe in getting into (verbal) fights in public. It wasn't dignified. Especially since she had a habit of inadvertently emasculating him, and he did not want her sister or her sister's band mates witnessing that—as far as they were concerned he was a bad-ass with an attitude to match.

A man had his priorities, after all.

He then stood by as Sada and her band mates gave Tokio's boots a good luck rub (Sada explained it was a tradition, since every show that Tokio wore them to turned out awesome; he glared daggers at Ichiro and Jiro when they took their turns, and they didn't dare linger) and then he and Tokio went out into the club to find a table, which was no problem at all because when everyone saw the look on Saitou's face they made way and stayed out of his way for the rest of the evening.

"Oh would you stop sulking?" Tokio chided as she hopped up onto a stool.

Saitou glared at her legs.

"I don't like them all staring," he muttered.

She rolled her eyes.

"Hajime they stare at every woman regardless of what she looks like."

"I don't like it," he replied, glowering at her now, and she sighed and sent him a flat look.

"Baby." she accused.

He didn't hear her; he'd made eye contact with a guy at the bar who was staring at Tokio, and was currently in the process of trying to glare the guy into bursting into flames or exploding, which ever came first.

It took him a while to accept that she was not going to allow him to throw his jacket over her (they got into a very heated argument about that that had ended with a very undignified pinching fight that she'd won when she'd clamped on and refused to stop twisting if he didn't stop acting like such a big fat-headed idiot), and by then, Sada's band had set up and was ready to start the show.

"'Chemical Castration'?" Saitou repeated after the club owner, who'd introduced Sada's band. He looked over at Tokio, who had her fingers in her mouth and was whistling as shrilly as everyone else, and nudged her to get her attention.

"Huh?" she asked above the din of people stomping their feet and yelling and hooting.

"The band is called 'Chemical Castration'?" he yelled back.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Tokio shrugged, smiling. "They all liked the sound of it."

"Good gods," Saitou replied, appalled, and Tokio grinned at him.

It had been a very long time since Saitou had been out to a club, because he avoided unnecessary contact with other people since he thought most other people were idiots. The last time had been with Okita when they'd been a little over a decade younger and technically not able to enter said clubs, but a little detail like that had hardly been enough to stop them, especially as they'd been tall for their age and had always looked older than they actually were. And if Saitou hadn't shaved for a few days, he'd easily passed for a college student; Okita's baby-skinned face refused to allow him to get a good five o'clock shadow going, so he'd mostly had to rely on talking his way in until Harada had scored them some exceptionally well-made fake ids. Saitou smirked faintly as he watched two young men who were clearly not supposed to be at this club huddling in a corner, probably strategizing, and marveled at the crap he'd gotten away with as a teenager. Granted, it wasn't nearly in league with what his older brother had gotten away with (now _there_ was a _professional_ miscreant), but for Saitou it was quite noteworthy.

This was nothing like what he remembered; it wasn't exciting or all that entertaining, really, and about the only plus was that he could smoke as much as he wanted. Then again, he reasoned, he was older now, instead of being younger, than the people in here. About half of them he was pretty sure didn't belong here because they were underage. The other half was anyone's guess.

Sada's band turned out to be pretty good, not that he was any real judge of quality music. They were incredibly loud and frantic, but not so loud and frantic that it made his ears bleed or anything that drastic. In fact, nearly every song in their first set started very suddenly and seemed to end just as suddenly. Nobody minded. It was fairly obvious from the crowd's reaction that they were happy Chemical Castration had come back "home", and he was willing to bet they'd been away for some time.

When the band finished their first set he posed the question to Tokio, and tried to make out her response over the ringing in his ears:

"I think the last time they were here was the last or next to last show I came," she replied, thoughtful. "It's sort of hard to remember. But either way, they've been away for a long while, yeah."

"I see," he replied, wincing slightly.

She grinned.

"Too loud?" she asked.

"Only a lot," he dryly replied, and her grin widened and she reached up under her hair—he was pleased to see she'd worn it down tonight—and produced a little yellow bud. It took him a moment to realize it was an ear plug.

"Thanks for the heads-up," he muttered, sending her a flat look, and she laughed and leaned over the table and kissed him.

"One night won't kill you," she assured him.

"No, but I may never hear again."

She wrinkled her nose at him.

"You sound like an old man," she teased. "Past your bedtime?"

He sent her a lecherous grin.

"Better not start something you can't finish, Chiisai," he sweetly warned, and she shook her head.

"Go get a drink, huh?"

"And leave you here alone?" Saitou asked, all joking gone and a ferocious frown on his face now.

Tokio sighed, and placed her chin in the palm of her right hand.

"Hajime, _I'd_ like a drink. Now I can go get it or you can go. Which do you prefer?"

It took every iota of will power he possessed to keep from saying neither and pissing her off.

"Fine I'll go," he muttered and she gifted him a pleased smile.

"Thank you. Beer will be fine."

"Yeah yeah yeah," he said, taking the opportunity to pinch her thigh. "Uncross those legs—makes the skirt ride up."

"Pervert," she said primly, but did as he ordered.

"_I_ can look," he shot back. "They can't."

She seemed to decide not to argue with him, though she did send him one of her special "I-just-want-you-to-know-that-you're-a-big-fat-dummy" looks. He didn't reply, though he did lean over and kiss her before sauntering over to the bar.

Which was where he found the next big surprise of his odd evening out.

He had just ordered Tokio's beer and one for himself and gotten comfortable against the bar when he glanced over to his left and then stared, because he was sure he'd just seen Shinomori Aoshi staring at him and was also equally sure that the volume of Chemical Castration's performance must have completely screwed with his head because he had to be imagining the other man.

As it turned out, he wasn't seeing things.

"Inspector Saitou?" Aoshi asked, obviously just as startled, and very clearly just as convinced this had to be a deeply weird hallucination.

"Shinomori," Saitou said awkwardly.

The two men watched each other in silence for several moments, then by unspoken agreement began to pretend the other one wasn't there. And while Saitou felt sort of dumb—okay, he felt _very_ dumb—ignoring his junior officer, he also did not feel comfortable making small talk with the younger man.

Sure they went out drinking on occasion after the end of their shift—hell, who in their precinct didn't go out drinking with his fellow officers sometimes?—but Saitou didn't really consider any of them, aside from Okita, his friends. Their association was completely professional and that was it. Saitou had never been the sort to make new friends easily, because he was quite content with the ones he had already, thank you very much, and was of the opinion that he didn't need any new ones. As a consequence, he didn't go out of his way to befriend anyone. Well, Tokio was a notable exception, but that was different and didn't count.

A sudden, terrible thought occurred to Saitou and he turned back to Aoshi sharply.

"Is Makimachi here too?" he demanded.

"Er…yes sir," Aoshi replied, a little startled that Saitou had violated their unspoken agreement.

Saitou was quite horrified by that answer, and knew it showed on his face.

"I didn't see you if you didn't see me," Aoshi said finally.

A vision of having to sit with Misao the rest of the night should Tokio find out the younger couple was at the club flashed through his mind's eye:

"Deal," Saitou quickly agreed.

He and Aoshi nodded on it, then went back to ignoring each other, and fifteen minutes later he was back at the table and delivered Tokio's beer to her and did not breathe a word about either his junior officer or his junior officer's weasel.

A man had his priorities, after all, and one of his was staying halfway sane for a little while longer.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saitou decided this was very familiar. Well, not the setting, but the circumstances.

Sort of, anyway.

After the show, Sada's band mates had begged him and Tokio to go back with them to the crappy house they rented in one of Shinjuku Ward's residential districts, and somehow or another they had given in, which explained why he was currently seated on the floor of said crappy house's crappy living room, leaning back against Tokio, spectacularly drunk in a way he hadn't been for a very long time and quite unconcerned with that fact, though he had a feeling, somewhere in the back of his mind where there were still brain cells he hadn't managed to drown in liquor, that he was going to regret this tomorrow.

But that was tomorrow. Tonight (which was technically tomorrow, but Saitou wasn't up for splitting hairs since he couldn't even see straight anymore), he had Tokio and beer and that equation equaled a very happy Saitou.

Sada and Etsu were sprawled on the floor, giggling and singing one of their songs off-key. Ichiro was keeping sloppy time with two empty beer cans against the coffee table top; Jiro was keeping time with messy slurps of beer. And Tokio was nibbling on his ear (Saitou's, not Jiro's).

Apparently, she got _real_ affectionate when she drank enough beer.

Saitou decided that this was important information to know, and made an effort to try to remember it. He'd find out how successful he'd been tomorrow—er, today.

Oh whatever.

"Ya missed a beat," Jiro slurred to Ichiro, who paused and blinked at him.

"I did?" he asked, sounding surprised. He then burped very loudly, which sent Etsu and Sada into a giggling fit.

Ichiro looked up at Tokio, bleary-eyed.

"Sis? Did I miss a beat?"

"I wasn't paying attention Ichi-kun," Tokio replied, pausing long enough to answer and then going right back to Saitou's left ear lobe.

"Ya missed it," Jiro insisted, and Ichiro shrugged inelegantly after a moment.

"It happens, dude," he said before he slumped over and promptly began snoring.

"Ichi-chan's down," Sada chirped, rolling to her knees and managing to sit up. Kind of.

"He lasted longer'n I thought," Saitou murmured, vaguely aware that his words were slurring, though not nearly as bad as Tokio's when she'd had a few.

"You're a big drinker, eh Sexy-san?" Etsu asked sleepily.

"I guess." He rubbed a heavy hand up and down Tokio's left leg; he'd been sad to see the hooker boots go until he'd realized that just meant he could touch her legs now. That had been about two hours and at least five cases of beer ago.

"Oi, don' fall asleep," Sada said, nudging Etsu. "You gotta help me get Ichi-chan upstairs."

"Get Jiro t' do it," Etsu said grumpily.

"Jiro'd fall down the stairs an' prob'ly kill 'em both," Sada replied.

"So get Sexy-san t' do it."

Sada let out a guffaw and nearly ended up sprawled out on the floor again.

"No way—he ain't movin' nowhere," she said. "Look at 'im."

Etsu made the effort to raise her head, saw what Sada was talking about and promptly began laughing.

"Yeah, I guess that was dumb," she admitted. "Sis's doin' a number on 'im, uh?"

"Uh-huh," Sada agreed with a smile. "An' he's enjoyin' every minute of it."

"I gotta get 'er drunk more oft'n," Saitou decided, then let out a grunt when Tokio nipped him especially hard.

"Quiet you," she murmured. "Or I won't be getting you another beer."

"Can't," Jiro piped up, face down on the coffee table. "Ain't n' more."

There was a general noise of disappointment made, and after a few moments of gloomily contemplating this depressing news, Sada managed to stumble to her feet.

Between her and Etsu, they managed to get the snoring Ichiro up the stairs, and then Etsu helped Jiro upstairs. Tokio then left Saitou to help her sister pick up the beer cans and leftover Chinese food cartons (from the late night run Jiro had suggested on the way back to the house) that littered the living room like sad little casualties. Saitou laid back on the carpet and decided moving was really bad, because the room was spinning and that hadn't happened in a very long time.

At some point he closed his eyes and maybe even fell asleep (he wasn't sure, but he didn't really care about details right now), and then felt something heavy and fruity-smelling and warm fall on him so he cracked one eye open, and saw a Tokio-shaped blob and the edge of what appeared to be the heavy, fruity-smelling, warm thing that had had fallen on him. So he grabbed the closest part of the Tokio-shaped blob he could see—it felt like a wrist—and yanked her down next to him.

"C'mere," he muttered.

"You need to sleep it off, Hajime," she said.

He settled her against his chest, head tucked under his chin, and closed his eyes.

"You too."

"I'm not as bad off as you are."

"Sleep it off with me," he said.

"I was gonna sleep with Sada in her room."

"Well now you're gonna sleep with me in the livin' room," he replied, and he heard her sigh, but knew it wasn't one of her angry or impatient sighs because she laughed a little.

"Like a giant teddy bear?" she teased, getting an arm free and using it to better cover him with the blanket.

"Feh," was his sleepy reply. "You're too little t' be a giant teddy bear."

She laughed again.

"You're _soooo_ drunk."

"Shh," he ordered. "I'm sleepin'."

She kissed him, then snuggled under his chin.

"Okay," she said, sounding drowsy. "You're sleepin'."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

He was dying.

Saitou had been drinking for several years now, but he didn't ever remember thinking he was dying when he got up the next day with the occasional hangover. Then again, the mere impression of sunlight against his eyelids didn't usually make him want to throw up either.

It took a long time for him to control the urge to throw up, and then he had to work on making the room stop spinning, because if it kept doing that all his efforts to keep from throwing up would be in vain. And then the sound of a door sliding open on its tracks reached his ears and echoed throughout his head and he decided it wasn't worth the effort to go on living.

So he tried to say, "Please just kill me now."

What came out was a rusty, pitiful death moan.

Tokio stared at the lump of blanket that had just made the single most pathetic sound she'd ever heard in her life.

Oh wow. That did _not_ sound good.

She padded over to the blanket and knelt down, then set aside the cup of coffee she'd brought for him, and set about looking for him.

"Hajime," she called softly. "I brought you some coffee."

Another death moan; she winced in sympathy even as her more practical side reminded her that no one had ordered him to consume two cases and a third of another, by himself, of the crap beer Sada and her band mates bought because they couldn't afford anything better.

Eventually, she coaxed him out from under the blanket. And when she got a good look at him, she made a low sound of sympathy:

"Oh you poor thing."

He really looked awful. He couldn't open his eyes and he was very pale in that sickly kind of way that told you someone was bare seconds away from being violently ill and every little noise made him wince, and every little movement elicited one of those terrible, pitiful death moans.

Eventually, despite the torture he felt when he moved, she managed to help him up, then helped him grab the cup of coffee and drink. Which didn't turn out as well as she'd hoped:

"What the _hell_ is that—ahh! Head—_head_!" he moaned, clutching the head in question.

"Coffee," she replied, baffled.

"Did you—" (here he hissed) "—put something in it?" he asked after a few moments of moaning under his breath.

"Creamer and a little sugar," she replied.

"Aw hell," he groaned. "I hate that crap."

"Well we're sharing a cup of coffee and I don't like it black," she replied.

He leaned his forehead against her shoulder and groaned.

"Kill me," he muttered into her shoulder. "A kick to the temple, anything—_just_ _make it_ _stop_."

She rubbed his back and leaned her head against his and waited for him to stop whining (though she knew better than to mention this ever again, because she knew he'd deny it up and down until the day he died because Saitou Hajime did not _whine_, thank you very much).

"I have aspirin in my purse," she said, and he paused, then slowly raised his head and looked at her out of narrowed, bloodshot eyes.

"Yeah?"

She nodded.

"Bring the whole bottle," he said. "Oh right, a glass of water too," he added as an afterthought, and she rolled her eyes.

"No, come out to get it."

"No way!" he snapped, then hissed and clutched his head; she rubbed his back.

"Hajime, you have to eat something too," she replied. "Jiro's making waffles."

"I don't want waffles," he muttered.

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"They're good waffles. Come on."

"No."

"I'm not giving you a single aspirin unless you eat a waffle," she said sternly, and he sent her a churlish look; she raised an eyebrow, her glare challenging.

"Evil woman," he muttered finally, and she smiled and kissed him gently.

"Good boy," she cooed.

"Feh," was his reply, but there wasn't any bite to it the way there usually was.

She got him to drink a little more of the coffee to wake him up a little more before she helped him into the kitchen. He still looked like death warmed over, but at least he wasn't groaning anymore; Tokio didn't think she could take any more of that. It was simply too weird to see Saitou incapacitated like that.

Her sister and the band members were appropriately subdued, and Jiro took care to set the plate with Saitou's waffles down on the counter gently. Saitou sent him and Ichiro dirty looks while Tokio cut up his waffles for him (he didn't remember too clearly everything that had happened last night, but he was sure those two had had a hand in it), and then he grudgingly ate them and then sent her an expectant look. She frowned at him, but got the aspirin for him as promised and gave him three. He carefully knocked them back with a glass of water, then headed for the bathroom, and Tokio watched him go with a frown and waited until she heard the door shut. Then she looked back to Jiro.

"A big cup of coffee, black," she ordered.

Jiro winced and rubbed his forehead.

"Okay Sis," he said with something of a whimper; he was _never_ going to bet Saitou he could drink more beer than the lanky police officer could _ever_ _again_.

By the time Saitou came back out, he was feeling slightly more human. He'd washed his face and inspected his reflection in the mirror and decided that Tokio was a very hard woman to scare, because he scared _himself_. He'd also been annoyed to a ridiculous degree by his stubble, but because he couldn't do anything about it, he'd just let it be.

He hadn't gone more than three steps from the doorway before Tokio breezed by with a cup of steaming coffee. She snagged his wrist and said,

"Come on."

And because she'd caught him off guard, he followed.

She led them outside, which he'd balked at at first ("My head feels like it's going to bust open you evil wench!" he'd snapped), but Tokio was nothing if not forceful when she wanted things her way, and so he ended up sitting on the lawn chair in the tiny backyard, under the awning ("Did you really think I'd take you outside without one, you dummy?" she'd demanded, one eyebrow raised in challenge), with Tokio in his lap and a cup of black coffee in his hand, and he decided, well, things could have been a lot worse.

"Why'd you drag me out here?" he asked.

"Because," she replied, plucking the cup of coffee from his hand and drinking, and then making a face.

He grinned despite the pain pricking him like millions of sharp little needles behind his eyes.

"Ugh—how can you drink that?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

He leaned forward and kissed her, then took the cup back and drank.

"Because," he cheekily replied, and she rolled her eyes, then reached up and rubbed the backs of her knuckles against his stubbly cheek.

"Huh," she said, smiling faintly. "You _do_ have magic stubble."

He blinked.

"I have what?" he asked, baffled.

She shook her head, grinning up at him in a rather disarming fashion.

"Oh nothing," she assured. "I'll explain it some other day when you can concentrate better."

He grunted, then eyed her clothing and frowned. She was wearing sweatpants (ah, how he missed those legs…) and a t-shirt, which he did not recall seeing her in last night. Then again, there was quite a lot he didn't recall about last night.

"When'd you change clothes?" he asked.

"When I woke up—by the way, you snore _really_ loud."

A pause.

"I do not," he said, slightly offended.

She smiled and rubbed her nose against his.

"Yeah, you do," she said then kissed him hard before he could protest again.

"I do not," he said the minute she leaned back, and she laughed, softly though, so she didn't make his head feel worse.

"Okay," she agreed, obviously humoring him.

"I do n—ahh," he said, wincing as the pain behind his eyes pulsed a little more insistently. "Fuckin' cheap beer," he mumbled finally, and Tokio smiled and leaned back against him.

"No one told you to drink so much," she pointed out.

He grumbled something she didn't catch, and then they sat quietly for a long moment before he suddenly said,

"Oi…you don't smell like laundry."

Tokio frowned and looked up at him.

"What?"

"You don't smell like laundry," he repeated, looking very unhappy with this discovery.

She blinked.

"I smell like laundry," she said.

"Well not now you don't," he muttered, disgruntled.

"I usually smell like laundry?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"How come?"

"Huh?"

"How come you smell like laundry? That some kinda weird perfume or something?"

Tokio smiled faintly.

"No, I don't wear perfume," she said, shaking her head. "It's hard to find one that doesn't give me headaches."

"Oh." Pause. "So how come you smell like laundry?"

She shrugged a shoulder and settled back against him.

"I dunno," she replied. "Probably just the detergent Mama uses to wash clothes."

"Huh."

Tokio smiled but decided not to say anything. She thought it was sort of cute that he was so disappointed that she didn't smell like laundry, not that she'd ever tell him. Knowing him he'd get all offended and say he was not and never had been cute.

Silence descended again, and then Saitou suddenly asked,

"What time is it?"

Tokio tilted her head to one side.

"Well, when we were coming out here, it was around eight."

"Aw son of a bitch!" he groaned. "I'm freakin' late!"

"Ah, sorry," Tokio said sheepishly. "Forgot you had to work today."

"Damn it," he grumbled, then sighed. "Screw it, Himura can handle it for a little while—it's just the stake out, nothing big. We all know Wu isn't going to go anywhere near his old place."

"That _must_ be the hangover talking," Tokio said dryly, and he gave her hip a warning squeeze.

"Quiet you," he growled. "I'm cranky today."

She sent him a dry look.

"_Only_ today?" she inquired.

He sent her a disgruntled look.

"And you say I'm mean to you," he muttered. "What I do to you doesn't compare to the _abuse_ you heap on me."

"I do not abuse you you big baby!" she returned, indignant, and he hissed and clutched at his head.

"Not so loud, damn it!" he said, glaring at her.

She pouted at him, then snuggled against his chest.

"Drink your gross coffee," she ordered, kissing his chest through his shirt.

He smoothed a hand over her hair and obediently drank his coffee, smiling a little because even as miserable as he felt physically, he had her in his lap and a cup of black coffee in his hand and well, things could have been a lot worse.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 22: Time For Another Good Idea/Bad Idea:_

Saitou shot him a venomous look and Okita immediately retreated, hands up to block just in case.

"Easy Hajime," he said cautiously. "It was just a joke—you know, joke? Funny-haha?"

---

"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but a Saitou Hajime glare will liquefy your kidneys." Okita remarked with more than a little authority.

---

"So how close are you two, Takagi-san?" Jin'e asked in a voice so pleasant it was creepy.

Tokio, however, only blinked slowly.

"With all due respect Udou-san, I really don't see how that's any of your business."

---

The thumb and the hand it was attached to froze instantly on her wrist, and somewhere in the back of her mind she thought it was a pretty safe bet to say that asking a man if he'd ever killed someone was a major mood-killer.


	22. Time For Another Good Idea, Bad Idea

**Okay, we're going to try this again: THIS WEEK YOU GET NOT ONE, NOT TWO, BUT THREE CHAPTERS.**

No you aren't reading wrong, I'm perfectly serious (it's also the reason I'm late again). You get three chapters this time. Why? Well I feel like celebrating. I'm finally a real adult (not that fake adult you are when you turn eighteen). So you get to reap the benefits of me finally reaching real adulthood. : ).

**Please Be Advised:** This chapter and Chapter 23 are a little heavier than usual. There's still some funny here and there, but it's not the overall tone the way it usually is.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Twenty-Two: Time For Another Good Idea/Bad Idea**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Stop grinding your teeth," Tokio murmured sleepily.

"I'm not grinding my teeth," Saitou muttered, lying through the teeth he'd just been grinding.

"You'll wear them down to nubs," she returned as if he hadn't spoken.

"I wasn't grinding them," he snapped.

Tokio sighed, then turned over and squinted at him.

"Hajime, go to sleep," she said wearily.

"I'm not tired," he said, his bad temper evident.

"Then go outside and smoke a cigarette," she said, exasperated. "You're keeping me up and I have to get up early tomorrow."

"No one told you to stay over tonight," he snapped, and she sent him a very dangerous look that told him he'd just said the _wrong_ thing.

"That's right, no one did," she agreed. "And if I want to, I still have time to catch a train home, which is starting to look really good."

He stayed stubbornly silent, and then Tokio sighed again, threw the sheets off herself and got up.

"Where are you going?" he asked; she wasn't serious, was she?

"To sleep on the couch," she replied, grabbing the pillow she'd been using.

"You can't sleep on the couch," he said irritably, already getting out of the bed.

"No, I can't sleep in here, because you're being an ass," she replied, and he knew her patience with him had run out.

"Get back in the bed," he ordered.

"No," she said.

"Damn it Tokio get back in the bed!" he shouted.

Her response was to whack him in the face with her pillow, which he hadn't been expecting. But he decided that making him eat pillow was a pretty good comeback—the alternative would have started a fight.

She had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring at him, waiting for his response.

"Tokio, get back in the bed," he said wearily.

"Are you going to lie down again too?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Then gimme my pillow, I'm sleeping on the couch."

"You're not sleeping on the couch!"

"Well I'm not sleeping in here with you when you're like this," she shot back.

"Then I'll sleep on the damn couch!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

She stomped back to the bed, got in and then threw his pillow at his head. He dropped hers and caught his before she hit him again (those pillows sort of hurt on impact), then stooped over, snatched hers and threw it at her. She caught it, slammed it down on the mattress and then threw herself down on the mattress and turned her back on him, tossing the blankets back over herself. And that was about the moment he realized that he'd just exiled himself to the couch.

Like the truly spectacular idiot he was.

He left the bedroom, muttering, expression dark, and went into the living room and threw himself back onto the couch, pillow on one knee, and sat there in the darkness glaring at the dark TV screen and feeling like a moron.

Usually he was more than happy to have Tokio stay over with him (this made the third time so far), but in the past week they had made zero headway on finding Wu. The MPD had served dozens of search warrants and turned the houses of several of Japan's more prominent politicians upside down (and twisted several very prominent noses out of joint in the process), but every lead had dried up and now they had nothing.

_Nothing_.

And Saitou…was…_pissed_.

They'd grilled the Hiruma brothers relentlessly, but had gotten nothing from them either. Interrogating Nakajima had also turned up nothing, because Wu had always been the one calling the shots there, had always been the one in charge, the one who took care of details and then slipped his orders to Nakajima during office hours when people were out to lunch and no one was really around. Nakajima didn't have a number to reach Wu, and if they'd had to meet outside the office, they'd always met at spots of Wu's choosing.

Okita had been fruitlessly hacking into Wu's personal computer and accounts, trying to see if they'd maybe overlooked something the first time around, and Kenshin had been doing a little illegal eavesdropping on some of Wu's fat cat friends that Hijikata had quietly gotten the okay from Kondou for (completely off-the-record of course), and Aoshi had pulled Beshimi and Hannya from the museum to have them do a little digging in spots it was rumored Wu liked to frequent, and Saitou was still stuck sitting in a freaking car in front of the freaking house Wu was never in a million years going to come back to because everyone else had their jobs to do and he didn't trust anyone else to take on that job, even though it was so simple one of the Hirumas could have done it and not screwed up.

And everyone was turning up a whole lot of nothing and it was really pissing him off.

"He didn't just disappear!" he'd snapped earlier that evening when the team had convened at the museum, in the conference room, to share their respective nothings.

_Again_.

"You don't know that," Okita piped up. "He could be just like Houdini—'the Great Wu Heishin, Magician Extraordinaire'. It's kinda catchy."

Saitou shot him a venomous look and Okita immediately retreated, hands up to block just in case.

"Easy Hajime," he said cautiously. "It was just a joke—you know, joke? Funny-haha?"

Saitou glared at him for a few seconds more, just to make him nervous (which it did), then drew in a deep breath, leaned his hands on the table and yelled,

"_Where is that bastard_?!?"

There was a long pause, and then Okita quietly said,

"Dude, you seriously need to calm down."

"I can't calm down," Saitou snapped, glaring at him again, "because he's running around out there somewhere! He's an _idiot_ and I _can't_ find him! What the hell does that say about me?!?"

"That you don't think like an idiot?" Okita tried, and then yelped and ran away when Saitou ripped his hand cuffs from his belt and whipped them at Okita's head.

"Wow," Aoshi said. "He's starting to pick up some of Tokio-san's habits."

"It happens," Kenshin replied.

"Would you two shut up!" Saitou snapped.

"Sorry sir," Aoshi calmly replied.

It was at that point that the door to the conference room opened and Tokio poked her head in, glasses perched at the end of her nose and face incredulous.

"What in the world is going on in here?" she asked.

"Nothing," Saitou said, voice tight but making an obvious effort not to snap at her.

Tokio raised an eyebrow that clearly told everyone in the room she knew he was full of crap but wasn't going to say anything because it wasn't polite. Instead, she asked,

"Well are you going to be doing 'nothing' for much longer? Because if you are, I'd appreciate it if you kept 'nothing' down."

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Saitou irritably replied, and Tokio glared at him, then rolled her eyes and muttered "Fine" under her breath and left the conference room, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Bad move dude," Okita piped up.

An opinion which resulted in his barely being able to sidestep the pen Saitou whipped at his eye.

Once the "meeting" had been dismissed, Saitou had stalked into Tokio's office. She was seated at her desk, glasses still perched at the edge of her nose. She was staring at her monitor and her fingers were flying over the keyboard so fast it was hard to make out distinct key clicks.

"Is your 'nothing' over?" she dryly asked without looking at him.

"Ha ha ha," he sarcastically returned, throwing himself down on her couch. He slumped down and watched her for several seconds in silence, waiting for the inevitable pause, because she couldn't keep that up forever.

Once she paused to glance down at a paper to her right, he asked,

"You gonna be much longer?"

"No, I'm finishing up a report for the Board," she said. "I'd have had Enishi do it, but he's still furious over that phone call from the insurance company."

"What phone call?"

"Oh our idiot insurance provider called and accused him of screwing up some form or another. You should have seen him—he turned purple and choked for a few seconds before the screaming started. It was really quite impressive."

"I'm sure he appreciated being your entertainment," Saitou replied, and Tokio shrugged and looked at him over the rims of her glasses.

"He shouldn't have been yelling loud enough to disturb the Emperor."

He decided not to argue that logic.

Eventually, they left her office, though not before she shoved a handful of jelly beans into his mouth and ordered him to stop being such a wet blanket. That had sparked a lively debate as to what exactly constituted choking someone else with the explicit intent of killing them.

They'd had dinner at his apartment, a curry Tokio had made, and then they'd gone into the living room to catch up with the day's events via the nightly news. They'd taken turns in the shower, and he had lent her the same sleepshirt she'd used the last time she'd stayed over. And then they'd fooled around a little before she'd murmured that she needed to get up early tomorrow (his definition was a lot more specific than hers, though, and "petting" didn't come close in his book, but she was the one that had set those rules, not him), so that had been the end of that. And since she'd kept him more or less…entertained…he'd been able to ignore how blindingly pissed he was about not having even one flimsy lead on Wu.

Until now. Because he hadn't been sleepy when they'd turned in. Which meant he laid there and thought. And because there was nothing else to think about, he'd started thinking about how much he hated Wu for being so ridiculously difficult to pin down. Which had, in turn, resulted in his self-banishment from his own bed.

Truly, he was a pathetic man.

Movement at the doorway of the living room had his attention returning there, to find Tokio, one hand on her hip, the other covering her mouth as she yawned—he just barely made her out with the light coming in through the blinds.

"I said I'd take the couch," he muttered churlishly, feeling like an idiot and not really wanting her to make him feel like more of one.

"Come here," she murmured, sounding sleepy and grouchy.

"Damn it Tokio—"

"Hajime get up off your ass and come over here!" she snapped, and he growled uncharitable things about her under his breath but did as she ordered, his pillow still under his arm.

When he reached her, he glared down at where he thought her face probably was; now that he was blocking the light, it was hard to make out details like that.

"What?" he hissed.

She reached up, grabbed his face and pulled him down and kissed him.

"Come back to bed," she said when she pulled back.

He blinked.

"Why?"

"I miss you stupid, now come back," she grumbled, grabbing the wrist of his free hand and tugging. "It's late and I'm tired and I _will_ blame you tomorrow morning if I'm cranky when I wake up."

"You're cranky now," he pointed out, though he was feeling a little smug that she'd changed her mind and come to fetch him back to bed.

"Don't be cute," she advised, tone holding warning.

"I'm not cute," he returned, allowing her to lead him back into his bedroom by the wrist.

She snorted.

"Believe me, I know," she muttered, and he kept his peace, because if he said what he was thinking, he was pretty certain he'd be banished to the couch again, and this time, she wouldn't come to invite him back.

So they settled back into his bed, and she curled up into his side and fell asleep a few minutes later, after ordering him to not grind his teeth or make any other highly disruptive and annoying sounds.

It took a ridiculous amount of effort, but he managed to not think about Wu. Instead, he indulged in a few fantasies about Tokio that he had no doubt would earn him several very hard whacks to several very tender spots on his person. At that, he grinned and reached down and rubbed an absent hand up and down her back. She snuggled closer, insistently, and he predicted she'd run him off the bed before sunrise at the rate she was going.

Now sufficiently at ease, but still not tired, he decided to start the new book Shinpachi had given him. Occasional insomnia had allowed him to read his old friend's novels in a more or less timely manner. Shinpachi had once shared that he had awful insomnia, which was part of the reason he'd started writing, because it was something to do when he couldn't do anything else. Saitou had a theory about that—that, like him and Okita, Shinpachi was sometimes visited by memories he'd much rather would fade away into nothingness. He had to wonder, though, if that was entirely true; unlike Saitou and Okita, Shinpachi had never had to look the people he'd killed in the eye while he killed them.

Shinpachi had been the department's only explosives expert, because he had no fear of the chemicals he worked with and because he was so damn good at handling them. Saitou and Okita had once, on a whim a few years back, done a little research on a few of the compounds they knew for a fact Shinpachi had worked with, and were horrified to find that all of them had been highly dangerous. There had been so many instances when Shinpachi, Okita, Saitou and Harada should have died (because the other three always "helped" Shinpachi test out his newest mix for the entertainment factor of watching random things blow up) that it wasn't even worth trying to count them. There were even more instances when any of the four, or all of them, should have been seriously and perhaps permanently injured. Miraculously, the worst they'd ever gotten was the night back in their last year together in the department, before Shinpachi and Harada had left, when they'd blown up a urinal in the bathroom. Saitou had provided the cigarette that had delayed lighting the bomb Shinpachi had put together so they could find adequate cover (i.e., the stalls), but even so, a few pieces of airborne porcelain had managed to infiltrate their cover and scratch the crap out of their faces and arms. For some weird reason, their legs and feet had escaped with no damage. Kenshin had happened upon them when they'd been loitering in the bathroom that night, and he'd been dragged into it too. To this day, the redhead firmly held that all four of them were out of their ever-loving minds, because when he'd asked them why they wanted to blow up a urinal, of all things, they'd replied, in unison, "Well it's there."

Of course, there'd been hell to pay, as Saitou had predicted, and they'd all four of them been put on probation for that stunt. It wasn't very long after that that everything had begun to unravel, and within a year the department had been disbanded. It was one of the few good memories from their days "playing spy"—even Kenshin looked back on the incident with a certain fondness.

When he'd had enough to drink, that is.

To Saitou's surprise, he found himself reading about that precise incident, complete and unabridged, in Shinpachi's newest book, and he was grinning by the time he reached the end of the chapter, which ended with the miscreants involved—Shinpachi, Okita, Harada, and Saitou's literary counterparts—getting chewed out and put on probation exactly as their real-life counterparts had been. He was even more surprised to see that Shinpachi had written something at the end of the chapter in his neatly sloppy hand, accompanied by a ridiculous smiley face:

_Them were the days, eh Haji?_

He grunted, smiling.

"Yeah," he murmured, "them were the days all right."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

The mattress moving was his only clue to what she was about to do, so he waited and sure enough, Tokio draped herself over his shoulders a few seconds later and nuzzled his neck.

"You better not have any makeup on," he said immediately.

She sighed.

"That was _one_ time," she muttered.

"And the second shirt that had to prematurely end its tenure in my closet," he dryly replied.

She pinched his shoulder.

"Mean," she replied. "You act like I did it on purpose."

"Oh you did," he said, and she paused, then leaned over a bit father so she could look at his face.

"What?"

"You ruined my shirts on purpose," he reiterated.

She raised an eyebrow, frowning.

"Did I? And why, pray tell?"

"Well obviously, you wanted me to take my shirt off."

Tokio let out a groan.

"You're such an idiot," she muttered.

"And you obviously don't mind, or you wouldn't be here," he pointed out, smirking, and kissed her.

"At least you're in a better mood this morning," she observed, idly trailing a hand up and down his chest. "Last night I was this close to smothering you with your pillow," she added, using her other hand to show him how close he'd come to being suffocated by the woman he'd been trying to land for the last eight years.

Turned out he'd been a hair's breath away from needing a mortician this morning.

"I appreciate your restraint," he said.

"Oh I'm sure," she replied. She bit the side of his neck. "So I was thinkin'," she began.

"About doing that again?" he asked, and managed to keep the hopefulness out of his voice.

"No," she replied, and he sighed.

"Of course not," he muttered; she ignored him.

"I was thinkin', that I could probably stay over tonight too," she continued thoughtfully. "If you didn't mind, or anything."

Saitou paused, surprised, then turned his head to look at her.

"Yeah?"

She nodded, smiling.

"Uh-huh. Wouldn't be very difficult."

"How sure are you that you can swing it?"

"Oh…seventy percent, give or take."

"Sounds like good odds."

Her smile widened.

"Yeah? So you want me to stay over again?"

"I'd have to be crazy or gay to say otherwise, Tokio," he said sardonically, and she laughed and kissed him.

"Okay, I get it." She began to idly scratch his stomach. "One condition though: no Mr. Cranky Pants tonight, okay?"

"I don't have any control over that," he began, but she poked him in the stomach.

"Yes you do," she countered, "you just act like a jerk because there's less work involved. Promise—no Mr. Cranky Pants tonight."

"Mouthy wench," he muttered.

"Hajime," she prompted, tapping her nails against his stomach.

He sighed:

"Yeah, fine, no crankiness tonight." he agreed.

"Good," she said, sounding pleased. "I don't like you when you're like you were last night. It makes me want to strangle you."

"You a naturally homicidal person, Chiisai?"

She sighed wearily.

"No, but sometimes when you open your mouth I wish I was," she replied, anchoring her chin on his shoulder.

"Oh, you'd be sorry if you strangled me," he said.

"Yeah…I don't think I could get away with it—I'd definitely end up in prison for it," she replied thoughtfully, and there was a long pause.

"That was cold," he decided, voice mild, and she laughed and kissed the side of his neck.

"I'm going to put on my makeup now," she said, nuzzling the spot she'd kissed before slipping away.

He nodded and looked around and watched her pad out of his room, then sighed and finished buttoning up his shirt, then leaned over and pulled on his socks, not looking forward to this day in the least, because before he returned to the waste of time that was the stake out on Wu's house, he and Okita were going to pay Nakajima a little visit to interview him one more time and see if maybe they could dig up something new. Unfortunately, they'd be joined by the bastard's attorney, otherwise Saitou might have been cheered by the idea of seeing Nakajima—with the guy's defense there, there was no way the officers would be able to interrogate him the way they wanted to.

Probably just as well. Tokio wasn't naturally homicidal, but Saitou had a feeling he might be. Especially with people who messed with Tokio.

Nobody messed with his Chiisai.

_Nobody_.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"What a dump," Okita decided, wrinkling his nose. "Gods—even the hole I used to work in way back when was nicer than this."

Saitou didn't add anything because he was thinking the same thing: Nakajima's digs sucked. There was no nicer way of describing the man's apartment complex. It had to be even older than Saitou's, which was saying something, because his complex was among the oldest in Tokyo, and it showed despite his landlord's more drastic attempts.

This place was small and dark and cramped and Saitou wasn't claustrophobic but he was starting to feel really uncomfortable.

"I'm so glad you're doing this with me and not Shinomori," Okita said, as if reading his companion's thoughts. "He'd be hyperventilating by now. Weirds me out that a guy that cool gets freaked by small, enclosed spaces that bad."

Saitou grunted.

"You're deathly afraid of spiders, Souji," he pointed out.

Okita sent him an annoyed look.

"Oh shut up," he muttered. "Just because _you_ aren't afraid of anything…."

That wasn't true exactly; Saitou was uneasy at very high altitudes, which was why he'd gotten an apartment eight stories up instead of something higher (and he was still really not comfortable with being eight stories up), and why when he sat on the balcony to smoke he was careful to keep back from the edge, taking no reassurance from the railing. Looking down at the ground from that high up made him nauseous, and he'd start sweating and feeling dizzy and it was just not a fun feeling. Happily, he'd managed to keep that from Okita, but Tokio appeared to have picked up on it, because he had a tendency to get antsy when she leaned on the railing. So far she hadn't said anything about it, though he'd gotten several strange looks. He sort of hoped she'd leave well enough alone, because it really embarrassed him that heights freaked him out, if only a little.

Beside him, Okita sighed, hands in his jacket pockets. He looked over at his friend.

"Shall we?"

Saitou removed the cigarette he'd been smoking from his mouth and flicked it to the floor.

"If we must," he said resignedly, rubbing it out.

They walked in and decided against using the elevator since it looked like it had been new in 1921. So they jogged up dank stairs lit by sad little bulbs that hampered more than helped until they got to the sixth floor. They were standing outside Nakajima's apartment soon thereafter, in a badly lit hallway. Okita rang the door buzzer; Saitou squinted up the hall.

"Geez this place is a pit," he muttered.

"No kidding," Okita said with a shudder. "Makes your place look like a palace."

"Watch it smart ass," Saitou replied, tone sharp with warning.

Okita made a gesture for him to calm down.

"I'm kidding, dude," he said. "Geez—you need to relax. When you get wound up like this people die."

"People do not die," Saitou snapped.

"Well fine, but I'm sure they wish they would, just to get the hell away from you."

"Dick," Saitou muttered just as the door opened.

Nakajima's attorney, a man both officers were familiar with, greeted them. Immediately, Saitou's enthusiasm for this visit dropped even lower, which he hadn't thought possible; if it had been hooked up to a heart monitor, it would have been reading a flat line right now.

"Oh hells," Okita said irritably, not even bothering to hide his displeasure.

"Nice to see you too Lieutenant," the attorney dryly returned. He looked at Saitou. "Inspector," he greeted.

"Yeah yeah yeah," Saitou said impatiently. "Could we just do this? I've got better things to do."

The attorney inclined his head ever so slightly, then stepped aside and let them enter the apartment. The officers reluctantly removed their shoes in the entry and walked into the apartment proper; Nakajima was sitting at the table, hands clasped on top of it. He looked very calm and collected, and if it weren't for the attorney's presence, Saitou would have bounced his head off the table.

The attorney settled down at the table beside his client, then looked up at the officers. Okita had found a bare spot of wall to lean against; Saitou had his hands in his jeans pockets, gaze on the head curator. Or rather, _former_ head curator—Tokio had taken real and true delight in firing Nakajima in front of the entire criminal investigations department. She'd also taken delight in ripping up his timecard and throwing the little pieces up into the air like confetti.

"What can we do for you today?" the attorney asked.

"_You_ can sit there and not interfere," Saitou said with a meaningful look in the man's direction. "The only reason _you're_ here is because your client's too much of a pussy to face us alone."

The attorney frowned faintly.

"Inspector, I'll thank you to be civil and courteous," he began, but a highly amused snort from Okita interrupted.

"You're barking up the wrong tree, Matsumoto," he said with a smirk. "There ain't a courteous bone in Saitou-san's body. As to civil—well, this is about as civil as he gets."

Matsumoto the attorney rolled his eyes.

"Thank you for reminding me I was dealing with barbarians Lieutenant," he returned with a sniff.

"And see that you don't forget again," Saitou said quietly, sending the attorney a truly chilling look that made Matsumoto and Nakajima visibly uncomfortable.

"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but a Saitou Hajime glare will liquefy your kidneys." Okita remarked with more than a little authority.

He sent them a wide, unapologetic smile too, clearly enjoying the scene.

Suddenly, this little interview seemed like it might just be pretty damn fun….

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"Well this is certainly a surprise," Udou Jin'e said with a faint smirk when Tokio entered his office.

Tokio bowed low. "Good morning Udou-san," she greeted. "How are you?"

"Intrigued," Jin'e said, gesturing for her to take a seat. "Whatever brings you over to my neck of the woods, Takagi-san?"

"I was hoping you could help me," Tokio said as she walked to the chair before his desk and sat on the edge, back straight, hands in her lap. "I'm looking for something."

"Then you've certainly come to the right place," Jin'e said with a smirk. "I've been told I have the largest collection of 'something' in all of Japan."

Tokio smiled.

"Which is why I immediately thought of you," she said, and he chuckled.

"So what are you in the market for?" he asked, leaning back in his chair and tilting it back. "Something to replace an artifact in your Meiji exhibit?"

"Actually, sir," Tokio began hesitantly, "it's not for the museum. It's for…someone. A friend."

Jin'e raised an eyebrow.

"'Friend', eh?" he asked, eyeing her speculatively. "Got anything in particular in mind?"

"Several things, actually," she admitted, "but…I don't know. Nothing seems quite right."

Jin'e pursed his lips and stared into the air to her left, eyes distant. After several moments, he asked,

"Male or female?"

"Male."

"Age?"

"Thirty."

One of Jin'e's eyebrows twitched.

"Christmas or birthday?"

Tokio blinked.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, confused.

"Are you getting the Wolf a Christmas present or a birthday present?" Jin'e asked, and this time Tokio stared at him in astonishment.

"What…what makes you think this has anything to do with Saitou-san?" she asked finally.

"A shot in the dark," Jin'e replied, looking at her now, and sending her one of his creepy smiles. "One that appears to have hit its mark, unless I'm very much mistaken."

Tokio raised a cool eyebrow.

"And if I may ask how you arrived at that _brilliant_ deduction?" she asked dryly, and Jin'e chuckled.

"Process of elimination, Takagi-san. I know your brother is younger than you because you've mentioned it on several occasions, if you will recall. Kiyosato's birthday isn't until June, and besides that you always get him whatever new fangled electronic device they've come out with. Your father and uncle are in their fifties, so that takes care of them. Every other male you know is your age or a year younger or older. But the Wolf doesn't fall into either category."

Tokio eyed him for a moment, then pursed her lips.

"I can't say as you've won any points with me for that, Udou-san," she said finally, and Jin'e grinned widely.

"Then it's a very good thing that wasn't my intent. Now what did you have in mind for the Wolf?"

"It's not a Christmas present or a birthday present," she haughtily said. "I merely want to get him something to thank him for his time and efforts on behalf of the museum."

"Ah—so you've already picked up your tokens of appreciation for the other officers?" Jin'e asked, raising an eyebrow in a way that told Tokio he didn't buy a word of what she was saying.

"Yes," she said coolly, raising her eyebrow in a way that dared him to say something about it.

Jin'e grinned.

"Why don't you look around my collection, see if you see anything that will suit your preferences?" he suggested.

"Thank you," she said primly, and his grin widened.

"I'll order you lunch," he said. "I have a feeling you'll be around for a while."

"Thank you Udou-san," Tokio said again, this time a little less stiff and formal.

Jin'e was one of the few people who had never questioned Tokio's capabilities (Hiko had been another). As a consequence, she didn't mind dealing with him, even if he occasionally proved to be trying on the nerves. Which was good, because Jin'e made Akira uncomfortable and completely gave Enishi and Tomoe the creeps, so by default, dealing with Jin'e fell to her. And because she handled Jin'e so well, she was in charge of taking care of other "problems". Akira marveled at the ease with which Tokio dealt with people like Jin'e and Hiko; Tokio only shrugged and said that being Takagi Kojuro's daughter had prepared her for it.

Jin'e led her to his store room, and for the next two hours they went through it, Jin'e wearing his magnifying glasses and giving her a well-rounded rundown of the objects they went through. His secretary arrived at some point and told them their lunches had arrived, and they retreated back to Jin'e's office to eat.

And that was when Jin'e decided to be trying on the nerves again:

"So tell me, Takagi-san, do you get along with the Wolf?" he asked.

Tokio paused and cocked her head.

"'Get along'?" she repeated.

"Yes—Saitou is…generally not an easy person to get along with. Rather antisocial. And hostile—Battousai's antisocial too, but he won't generally attack unless severely provoked. The Wolf is less difficult to provoke."

"I haven't had many difficulties," Tokio said, which was the truth, because she didn't see the point in trying to outright lie to someone who had known Saitou longer than she had.

Jin'e chuckled and sat back in his seat.

"Now that's a surprise," he said. "You're no shrinking violet, and the Wolf likes to be in charge."

"He keeps to his business and I keep to mine," Tokio replied.

"Hm." Jin'e eyed her speculatively. "Have you known him for very long?"

"We frequent the same luncheonette," Tokio hedged. "I've known of him for quite some time now."

Jin'e watched her, then slowly grinned.

"Is that right," he murmured.

Tokio made a sound of agreement and went back to her meal. It was quiet for a few moments more. Then:

"So how close are you two, Takagi-san?" Jin'e asked in a voice so pleasant it was creepy.

Tokio, however, only blinked slowly.

"With all due respect Udou-san, I really don't see how that's any of your business."

"Oh well it's not, of course," Jin'e agreed. "I was only curious. He seems rather…protective of you."

"We're friendly," Tokio said shortly.

"Are you now?" Jin'e looked positively gleeful. "Now that's fascinating."

Tokio let out a vaguely impatient breath.

"Really?" she asked in a voice that clearly said she was tired of this line of conversation. "I can't imagine why."

"Oh, it's just I can't imagine you being friendly with the Wolf."

Her eyes narrowed.

"And why is that?"

Jin'e smiled, in a way best described as sinister.

"Just seems strange, knowing him as I do."

Tokio stared at him, lunch forgotten and her mouth going dry.

Ever since she'd learned Shinpachi's books were based on his and Saitou's and the others' activities from their days as government operatives, she'd been going back through her brother's modest collection, and growing increasingly more uncomfortable. Because some of the actions the characters took were actions that under other, normal circumstances would have been punishable by life imprisonment or death. In particular, Okita and Saitou's characters tended to have rather gruesome assignments, and it was disquieting to think there could be a grain of truth to the assignments, because if even half of it was true, they should have been executed years ago.

Two of them stood out in her mind: when Okita's character had had to be second for a colleague when that colleague committed seppuku, and when Saitou's character had had to execute a colleague. Both incidents had been described in minute detail, and that was part of the reason why Tokio was so upset by them, because they had to be true if the author—if Shinpachi—had taken the time to describe them the way he had. She didn't know how much of the incidents were truth, but it was disturbing to think that when you boiled it down, all that was left was that both men had had to kill people they worked with.

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately; Tokio wasn't sure she could tell which was right—she didn't get the chance to ask Jin'e to elaborate on just how he knew Saitou, because his secretary came in with his medication and Tokio went back to her lunch, feeling a little nauseous and anxious and suddenly sorry that she'd said she'd stay with Saitou that night.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Something was off.

Saitou wasn't sure what it was, exactly, but ever since he'd shown up at the museum to pick her up, she'd been more subdued than usual. He'd made the mistake of asking her if she was okay, and she'd spent the rest of the night trying to prove to him that she was fine, which only did the exact opposite.

Currently, they were lying on his bed, still dressed in their work clothes, because he'd suggested they read the next chapter in the book he was reading to her, and she'd agreed…reluctantly.

He was starting to get a little concerned, wondering what had happened between this morning when they'd left his apartment and now. It didn't help his mood any that he knew that asking her wouldn't do a damn bit of good, because she had such a stupid, moronic coping system that made no sense and defied all logic.

She made a move to get up and he stopped both reading and inwardly fuming about her stupid, moronic coping system that made no sense and defied all logic.

"What?" he asked.

"I was gonna get you some water," she said. "You've been reading for a while."

"Oh. Okay."

He watched her slip off the bed, rise and leave the room, and he marked their spot in the book and slowly shut it and set it down on the bed next to him, then carefully sat up, frowning.

He did not, both as a rule and because he was neurotic that way, like not knowing what was going on. So when she came back in, he asked,

"Tokio what's wrong with you tonight?"

She paused by the doorway and watched him with wide, surprised eyes, holding a glass of water.

"Huh?"

"You're acting weird," he said.

She looked a little taken aback.

"No I'm not," she said.

"Yeah, you are," he countered. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Tokio—"

"Hajime nothing happened," she insisted, walking into the room and holding out the glass to him. "Here."

He took the glass but didn't drink.

"You're not acting right," he said. "There's something off—and don't tell me there's nothing off," he snapped impatiently when she opened her mouth.

She sighed.

"Hajime, you're being paranoid," she said.

"Being paranoid would be me thinking that your odd behavior means you're going to poison me," he said, "and contrary to popular opinion I'm not that cracked just yet. Now what the hell is wrong with you?"

She watched him in silence for several minutes, and then abruptly crawled onto the bed and into his lap, throwing him off. She put her arms around him and hid her face in the crook of his neck and scared the bejesus out of him by doing it.

"Tokio," he said urgently. "What? What happened? Did you get a phone call or something?"

"I want to ask you something," she said, voice muffled. "And I want you to tell me the truth."

He set the glass aside on the bed side table and put one arm around her and used the thumb of his other hand to gently knead the nape of her neck.

"What?"

"When…when you worked for the government…did you ever…execute…anyone?"

The thumb and the hand it was attached to froze instantly, and somewhere in the back of her mind she thought it was a pretty safe bet to say that asking a man if he'd ever killed someone was a major mood-killer.

Then again, freaking him out the way she had was probably pretty high up there on the list too.

It was so silent in the apartment for so long that it started to make her ears ring. The only other sounds were his, his swallowing and his heart beating and his breathing, and she was suddenly very scared by what that silence meant.

"Before I answer you, can I ask why you're asking?" he finally inquired, voice strange—it was clipped, mechanical. It didn't sound like him.

"I…because…I changed my mind," she blurted suddenly. "Forget I asked."

"No," he said sharply, tightening his hold on her when she would have moved away. "Answer."

"Hajime," she said quietly. "I don't—"

"Answer," he said again.

Tokio squeezed her eyes shut and refused to say another word, and he held her there in that bruising embrace for a very long time before he eased up his grip at long last. She stayed where she was, afraid to look at him.

"You should take a shower," he said finally, sounding normal, as if nothing had happened. "We'll have to turn in soon."

She nodded slowly, but made no immediate move to detach herself from him. After a few moments, he rubbed his hand up and down her back.

"Come on Chiisai," he said. "Go on."

She had never been so happy to hear him call her by that hated nickname in her entire life.

Tokio kissed his neck and then moved away, not looking at him, still sort of scared of what she'd find there. And resolved to never again ask him what he'd done once upon a time before she'd met him. Because hearing him speak in that awful clipped voice had scared her far worse than anything else had ever scared her in the twenty-seven years she'd been alive.

Saitou watched her leave, feeling a little sick. He was suddenly very glad she'd chickened out on him at the last moment, because he had no idea how he'd have handled that conversation. Various scenarios played through his head, all of them ending badly. He didn't have any experience with this sort of thing—his family had never had even the faintest inkling as to what their youngest son was doing. He'd never told them, and they'd never asked, because they assumed that his sudden disappearance from their fold had had to do with the blow-up over his marriage to Yaso. He had not corrected that assumption—it was a convenient cover story.

He heard the water rumble through the pipes, and decided he had to seek the guidance of one better schooled in delicate, potentially volatile situations like this one, someone who'd walked down this road before, so he reached over and grabbed his cell phone and looked through his address book until he found the number he needed:

"Hey Senpai? It's me. So I've got this dilemma I thought you could help me with..."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 23: BOOM:_

Three days later everything went to hell.

---

"You son of a—!" she began, but the words died in her throat when Wu produced a handgun and aimed it at her.

His smile widened.

"Let's take a walk, shall we?"

---

Enishi paused in his own struggles and looked around, frowning when he didn't see Tokio standing outside with everyone else. He turned back to Shikijou.

"Where…is Tokio?" he growled.

---

"Shut up stupid ass," Wu snapped. "Was that your great plan? To get all shot up? Because if it was you did an outstanding job."


	23. BOOM

**PART TWO OF A THREE PART POST! **

So this chapter…whew. It was a real bitch to get out. Actually, it's the reason why I'm so late; it gave me a lot of grief and slowed me down. But I emerge victorious (sort of…). And I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out. So I'll be quiet now and let you read it.

**PLEASE BE ADVISED!** This chapter's a little more violent than the others have been. The language is also quite…coarser than usual. Ya can't say I didn't warn ya….

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

bonenkai: "forget-the-old-year party." Held during December, typically coinciding with the Christmas season. "Company groups, hobby groups, sports groups, etc, often book a section of a restaurant to have drinking parties. This phenomena leads to streets, subways and trains full of people in varied states of intoxication." ("Christmas in Japan" by Billy Hammond)

body armor: a classier way of referring to bullet-proof vests, which are not actually bullet-proof; they just slow a bullet's progress and hopefully stop it completely before it can hit the body

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Twenty-Three: BOOM**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Three days later everything went to hell.

Of course, no one had an inkling of impending doom, because not only was it a pretty nice winter day, the long-awaited first snow of the season had finally fallen and dusted Tokyo fairly liberally. It wasn't heavy, but it was still a substantial amount, and when Tokio walked to the museum from the train station that morning, she arrived in high spirits. She'd always liked snow. She'd even called Saitou on her way to the museum to tell him, and he'd humored her, though she could tell by his answers and his tone that he didn't see what the big deal was.

"It's just frozen water Tokio," Enishi said wearily when she breezed by and chirped a cheery "Good morning Enishi!" at him—Enishi spoke Saitou's language when it came to snow.

"Spoken like someone who's never seen snowflakes up close and personal," Tokio blithely replied, and Enishi rolled his eyes.

"I really wish your uncle wasn't a science teacher," he muttered, referring to last winter's trip to Aizuwakamatsu. "Every time you see him, you come back and immediately share useless information with me like I gave a damn."

"You should learn to appreciate science Enishi," Tokio chided. "It's fun."

"Whatever," Enishi said dismissively. "I got some good news for you."

Tokio paused in taking off her coat.

"Yeah?" she asked, intrigued. "What's up?"

"We got cases," Enishi said with a smug grin.

Tokio stared at him, eyes wide.

"Cases?" she repeated. "We got _display_ cases?"

"Yes ma'am," he affirmed, and Tokio let out a shriek of excitement and launched herself at Enishi and hugged him with all the strength in her body. Enishi grinned and hugged her back.

"When?" she asked, stepping back.

"Yesterday," he said. "The Queen and I finally found something we could agree on—there's one thing though. They're plastic."

Tokio's smile became a glare.

"I said—"

"I know, I know," he said, putting up a hand, "you said no plastic, exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point. But this is a different kind of plastic than the one you're thinking of. It looks just like glass, and unless you really look hard you can't tell the difference."

Tokio didn't look convinced. Enishi nodded.

"Look, I'll have the Queen come in and demonstrate, okay? Get settled in, and we'll do a demo in your office."

"Fine," Tokio replied, voice disgruntled and skeptical.

"Trust me Tokio, you won't be disappointed," Enishi assured.

He went off to find Kamatari, and Tokio settled into her office, all the while wondering where Misao was. She got her answer a few moments later, when Misao burst into the office, still wearing her coat and hat and juggling a tray with two plastic cups and a bag and her purse.

"Morning!" she cheerfully greeted.

Tokio's eyes widened, and she hurried to help the younger woman before the contents of the cups ended up on her floor.

"I was wondering what had happened to you, Misao-san," Tokio said with a wry smile as she took the bag and purse. "And good morning."

"Aoshi and I went to get some breakfast," Misao said. "I got you a muffin."

"Oh thank you," Tokio said, surprised by the thoughtful gesture.

"I had one and it was _delicious_," Misao said with a sigh. "I don't think I ever enjoyed a muffin so much in my life." She removed one of the cups from the tray and held it out to Tokio. "I knew I was gonna be late, so I grabbed a cup of coffee for you from the place so you wouldn't have to wait so long. Already has the creamer and sugar, too."

Tokio sent her a fond smile.

"Thank you Misao-san, I appreciate that."

Misao beamed.

"Well I'll go get your mail together—"

"Who's the other cup for?" Tokio inquired.

"Huh?" Misao asked thrown off.

"The other cup," Tokio said, gesturing with her nose. "Who's it for?"

"Oh," Misao said, looking down. She looked up at Tokio. "Me."

"I thought so," Tokio said with a nod. She smiled. "Come on in and drink it in here. The mail can wait."

It didn't take much more coaxing than that to get Misao to agree with the arrangement, and once she'd settle down into one of the chairs in front of Tokio's desk, the door opened and Kamatari appeared, a stand under one arm and a sheet of plastic under the other.

"Good morning Tokio-chan!" he greeted cheerfully, also in high spirits because of the snow. "Isn't today glorious?"

"A whole inch," Tokio agreed, grinning widely at him, and Misao smiled when she realized what they were talking about.

"Aoshi hates the snow," she admitted. "He hates the cold."

"Tsk tsk tsk," was Kamatari's assessment. "Obviously the attitude of a man who has never seen snowflakes up close and personal."

"He and Enishi and Hajime should form a club," Tokio said thoughtfully.

Kamatari sighed and rolled his eyes.

"These men—they have _no_ appreciation for anything worthwhile."

Misao raised an eyebrow and looked over at Tokio, who pressed her lips together to keep from laughing and shook her head. Misao decided to follow the older woman's advice and not point out that despite the decidedly feminine cut of Kamatari's clothing and decidedly feminine way he styled his hair, he was not a woman.

"Misao-chan?" Kamatari brightly asked. "Would you be a darling girl and help me here, please?"

"Sure thing Kamatari-san," Misao said, and obligingly went over to his side and held the plastic sheet while he set up the stand. He then took the sheet from her and placed it on the stand, then stepped back, hands fisted on his hips, and nodded his approval.

"Now if only the other materials would arrive," he murmured, just as Aoshi appeared in the doorway.

"You wanted me Honjou-san?" he asked.

Kamatari clapped his hands.

"Yay! You're just in time Shinomori-san! Please come in."

Aoshi nodded and entered the office, shutting the door behind him.

"Kamatari-chan?" Tokio called, getting up and walking around to the front of her desk to lean back against it. "Shouldn't we wait for Enishi?"

"No," Kamatari replied nonchalantly, and Tokio shook her head, smiling.

"Now Shinomori-san, do me a favor—you have your gun on you today, yes?"

"Yes sir Honjou-san," Aoshi said with a nod.

"Good—please shoot that sheet of plastic. One round should do the trick."

"Shoot it?" Tokio, Misao and Aoshi asked in surprised unison.

"Uh-huh," Kamatari cheerfully affirmed, nodding. "Trust me."

Aoshi looked to Tokio for guidance. Shrugging, she gestured for him to go on, and Aoshi, expression dubious, nevertheless drew his semi-automatic, aimed and once he'd gotten a bead, flipped the safety off.

"Wait!" Tokio said suddenly. "Let me call Takeda-san and let him know that if he hears a gunshot it's okay, or else bad things will happen and I'll get blamed and yelled at."

Kamatari allowed it, standing by impatiently while Tokio told her head of security that he was going to probably hear a gunshot, and that it was okay because it was part of a demonstration. Once she was assured that the staff would be informed, she hung up and gestured for Kamatari to continue. Kamatari looked back to Aoshi, who sighed, still looking like he thought this was a bad idea, but turned back to the plastic and aimed, finger slipping in between the trigger guard and the trigger once he'd decided on his target area.

And that was when Enishi threw the door open.

He took one look at Aoshi pointing his gun at him (Kamatari had set up the stand in front of the door) and yelped like a woman and jumped out into the hallway yelling,

"Holy shit don't shoot!"

Aoshi immediately pointed his weapon up at the ceiling and flipped the safety back on. Tokio and Kamatari were currently lying on the floor dying of laughter.

"Oh…gods!" Tokio choked out. "You…should…have seen…your face!"

"It's not fucking funny goddamn it!" Enishi bellowed. "Fuck Tokio! Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack?!?"

Hysterical laughter was his only answer.

It took a little while to get everyone on speaking terms again, and once ruffled feathers had been smoothed over, Aoshi's gun was once again pressed into service. This time, no one opened the door at the last second, and he fired at the sheet of plastic. The bullet ricocheted off the plastic and lodged itself in the roof. Tokio pulled her fingers out of her ears and wrinkled her nose at the smell of powder hanging in the air.

"What was the purpose of that demonstration?—thank you, Shinomori-san, that was fine."

Aoshi nodded and slipped his gun back into its holster.

Kamatari walked over to the plastic sheet and examined it, then grinned and waved everyone else over.

"Come look," he said, and they did, Tokio leading the pack.

"What are we supposed to see?" Tokio asked.

"Nothing, which is exactly what you'll find," Kamatari said smugly. "That bullet didn't even scratch it."

Tokio raised a skeptical eyebrow, and then she and Aoshi and Misao inspected the plastic.

Just as Kamatari had said, there wasn't a scratch anywhere on it.

"That's impressive," Tokio admitted reluctantly.

"And cheap," Enishi said, arms crossed over his chest. "By at least half."

Tokio's eyebrows rose, and she considered the plastic sheet again. At long last, she sighed.

"Well, I guess until we're not depending on anyone else for monetary support, this'll have to do—I'll sign the approval right now."

"Sweet," Enishi said with a grin. "It's a good investment Tokio, really."

Kamatari kissed Tokio's cheek.

"Well that's why she agreed to it of course," he said, smiling.

"How soon can we order?" Tokio asked Enishi.

"As soon as you sign the forms," he replied. "The company was willing to meet us halfway."

"That's _excellent_," Tokio said, grinning. "Oh how I'm looking forward to having our bonenkai this year. We have _so_ much to drink away."

"Indeed," Enishi dryly agreed.

"If you don't need me anymore, Tokio-san, I'll get back to my post," Aoshi said.

"You're free to go, Shinomori-san—thank you again for indulging us," Tokio added.

Aoshi nodded and bowed and left, Misao right behind him; Tokio, Enishi and Kamatari retreated to Tokio's desk, where Enishi produced the forms she needed to sign from his blazer pocket and showed her where she had to sign. Once that was done, he folded the forms up again, slipped them back into his pocket and said,

"I'm gonna fax 'em on over right now, and then call up the rep and bang out a contract. We should be ready to sign by this afternoon."

Tokio smiled.

"Enishi you're so efficient it makes me all squishy inside," she said.

He rolled his eyes.

"_Why_ do you say crap like that?" he asked with a weary sigh.

"To make you uncomfortable," she replied.

"Perverse woman," he muttered, shaking his head.

He and Kamatari soon left, and then Misao appeared again. Tokio grinned as she watched her temporary secretary try to discreetly fix her smudged lipstick.

"I was wondering where you'd gotten off to," she said, pretending she hadn't noticed. "Shall we have our coffee and muffins, Misao-san?"

Misao smiled at her.

"Sure thing Tokio-san." she said bobbing her head. She took her seat again and paused, suddenly thoughtful. "You know? You're the nicest boss I've ever had."

"For a dragon lady?" Tokio asked wryly, cocking one eyebrow at her secretary, who laughed.

"Yeah, for a dragon lady," she agreed.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

At eleven forty-seven, when Yamaguchi Shikijou was making his rounds, the automatic doors whooshed opened and a small, middle-aged looking man wearing a scarf, heavy coat and hat walked into the museum. He walked right up to Shikijou and asked, in a lightly accented voice,

"Do you know where I may find Takagi Tokio-san? I am the representative from the Japanese Historical Preservation society. She asked me to meet her for lunch."

Shikijou pursed his lips, frowning a little, and wondering why Aoshi hadn't mentioned that Takagi-san had another rep coming in. Then again, she could have forgotten again. Shikijou gave her credit: she had a lot of things to remember, but it was rare for Takagi-san to slip up and forget something.

"Sure thing," he said obligingly. He pointed to the man's right. "Those are the administrative offices right there. Takagi-san's door should be the only one open. If not, look for her secretary—she's small, dark brown hair in a braid, green eyes. Hyper. Can't miss her, really."

The man bobbed his head.

"Thank you," he said, and walked off in the direction Shikijou had pointed in.

The large, scarred man watched him go, feeling a little uneasy. He thought it was really odd that Takagi-san hadn't mentioned another rep would be coming by. He'd been under the impression that the last one had come by last week—no, two weeks ago, or almost. Aoshi had mentioned that she'd purposely staggered them throughout the week so as to get it over with quick.

"Weird," he murmured, and decided to find Aoshi and confirm—their walkie-talkies were being temperamental again, and it was hard to have a conversation when half of it was static.

Misao was in Tokio's office with her when the man arrived. He knocked on the doorjamb to announce his presence, and both women glanced up from the form Misao had been asking Tokio about. Tokio peered at him over the rim of her glasses.

"Yes? May I help you?" she asked.

The man removed his hat and sent her an oily smile.

"I should think so, Takagi-_san_," Wu Heishin said as he bowed mockingly before her.

Tokio's eyes went huge and she shot up out of her seat.

"You son of a—!" she began, but the words died in her throat when Wu produced a handgun and aimed it at her.

His smile widened.

"Let's take a walk, shall we?"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

This was _so_ incredibly stupid, Saitou decided as he attempted to balance two pencils on his nose at the same time, just to see if he could do it.

It's not like he had anything _better_ to do.

He was once again sitting in a car across the street from the house Wu was never going to return to ever again even if paid to, and he was freezing his ass off to boot, because he didn't want the battery to die on him after having the heater on for the whole day, which it probably would because the unmarked car they'd given him for the stake out was a _piece of crap_, and that was being _generous_.

"This is such crap," he muttered.

About the only good thing that had happened today was the surprise call from Tokio this morning when he'd been driving over to Suburban Hell for yet another episode of "Wasting Time with Wu's Empty Fucking House and the Mutt Who Wanted to Pee On the Car Tires." Even though she'd been blabbering on about snow (which he really couldn't have cared less about if he'd tried), he'd enjoyed hearing from her. Especially after three nights ago.

After she'd come back from the shower, he'd gone for his, and when he'd come out, he'd found her watching TV instead of curled up in bed like he'd been half-hoping she'd be. So he'd eased down next to her, never saying a word, and waited. It had taken twenty minutes, but eventually she'd scooted over to his side and snuggled into him, laying her head against his stomach as was her custom, and he'd looked up at the roof and silently thanked the gods. They'd gone to sleep not long after, because neither was much in the mood to fool around a little.

The next morning, she'd acted as though nothing had happened, and Saitou had followed her lead and started planning when he was going to have that conversation with her, because he _was_ planning on telling her. Not everything, because there were just some things he'd done that could never ever be revealed, things of a political nature that just weren't up for grabs. But other things (and he'd asked Shinpachi about that, since he had a long and colorful history with this sort of thing) were less dangerous to share.

"I was wondering when I'd get this call," Shinpachi said with a sigh when Saitou had very succinctly outlined the reason behind his call. "You really have the worst luck, Hajime-kun. Always pick either frighteningly clever women or just plain frightening ones."

"I get enough of that shit from Souji, dick," Saitou snapped. "Now what the hell am I supposed to do? What did you do? How'd you tell Ritsuko?"

Shinpachi sighed again.

"After the baby was born," he said. "She'd bring it up every once in a while, but I always cut her off and changed the subject, so she stopped asking after a while. Then once I started writing, she started asking me again. So one night, after thinking really long and hard about it for a week, I sat her down in the kitchen and told her. Here's some advice—don't look her in the eyes when you tell Tokio."

"Why?"

"It's hard to explain," Shinpachi admitted. "But I did it with Ritsuko and I almost chickened out at the last minute and told her to forget it. It was easier to do when I stared down at the table top. Trust me on this, Hajime, don't look her in the eye, okay?"

"Okay." Saitou paused. "What can I say?"

"In your case? You can talk about maybe one percent of the shit you did way back when."

"Jesus Christ," Saitou muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and fall back on his bed. "Fuck," he said wearily. "I figured, but…fuck."

"You and Himura had the worst assignments—plus don't forget that you were the department's executioner."

Saitou let out a humorless laugh.

"Yeah, 'cause that's so easy to forget," he said bitterly.

"You can talk about that, if you think you can get through it," Shinpachi said quietly. "You can talk about Inoue too. And she knows you used to work fro the government, so that takes care of half of the conversation right there."

"It's a start, anyway," Saitou said after a pause. "Thanks Senpai."

"Haji…look…I know Tokio's important to you and all—"

"What makes you say that?" Saitou asked, voice chilling, and Shinpachi chuckled a little.

"Because you actually want to tell her dip shit—you never thought about telling Yaso-chan once, even before Inoue."

Saitou grunted.

"Just…don't be too surprised if things don't go over well, okay? I mean, I can't speak for her and say how she'd react because I don't know Tokio, but Ritsuko…it took some getting used to."

Saitou decided against telling Shinpachi that Tokio had already suspected something even before knowing that Shinpachi's books were based on them and their days with the department. Because that would raise more questions, and Saitou wasn't sure he had answers for all of them.

He'd gotten a little more advice from Shinpachi before hanging up just in time; Tokio came out not two minutes after he'd ended the call.

So now he was carefully planning what he was going to tell her and when and how, and hoping against hope that his Chiisai would come through for him and accept that his past was not exactly the stuff of children's movies.

The radio crackled to life, breaking Saitou's concentration and irritating him further.

"Hajime. Come in Hajime," Okita's voice ordered.

Saitou swiped the handset off the dashboard.

"What?" he snapped.

"Haji, there's a problem and we need you at the museum right now," Okita said.

Saitou froze, every part of him suddenly feeling a lot colder than he'd been a few seconds ago.

"The museum?" he quietly repeated.

"Yeah—it's Wu, he showed up," Okita said. "When Shinomori figured out he'd gotten in somehow, he ordered everyone to evacuate the premises—"

"Except for Tokio," Saitou said, feeling dangerously calm inside.

"Her and Misao-san." Okita affirmed.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Saitou said, starting the car and abruptly shifting it into drive.

"Roger," Okita said.

Saitou threw the handset back onto the dashboard before he peeled out.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It had taken far too long to find Aoshi. Long enough for Wu to take both Tokio and Misao with him to the storage area at gun point. He'd put his hat back on, and he was watching both women very carefully. From a distance, it didn't look unusual at all, so none of the assistants gave it a second thought or tried to bother the group, and they made it to the storage room without being waylaid.

Once the door was shut, Wu removed his hat and scarf and set them aside.

"Now then, Takagi-san, if you would be so kind as to show me to the Shinuchi?" Wu said, the gun coming out from under the coat.

Tokio watched him with furious eyes for a moment, then sent him a cold smile.

"I'd be more than happy to, Wu-san—if only I still had it here."

Wu suddenly went very still.

"What?" he asked after a long silence.

"The Shinuchi is no longer here," Tokio said, obviously relishing this. "I sent it out several weeks ago to be repaired."

Without warning, Wu shot off a round—Tokio felt it cut the air by her face—and both women flinched at the sound.

"Let's try that again," Wu growled lowly, all traces of humor and lightness gone from his face. "_Where_ is the Shinuchi, Takagi?"

Outside the storage room, Shikijou had found Aoshi and told him about the surprise rep, and Aoshi's eyes immediately went wide.

"There are no other reps scheduled to come in," he said, and Shikijou's face went from worried to horrified.

"I just sent him into Takagi-san's office," he said, paling.

"_Shit_," Aoshi snarled, running out the door of the monitor room, where he'd just gotten to when Shikijou had found him.

The two uniformed men ran for Tokio's office and found it empty.

"_Shit_," Aoshi said again, louder now.

"Shinomori-san, I'm—" Shikijou began.

"It's okay, you didn't know," Aoshi cut in, frowning at the empty office. "Call the station, ask for Himura or Okita and explain what's going on. Say we may have a situation—"

The sound of a gun going off on the other side of the museum brought him up short. Aoshi immediately tore off for that end of the museum, yelling over his shoulder,

"Get Saitou over here _now_!"

"Yes sir!" Shikijou yelled back, striding to Misao's desk and grabbing her phone and dialing the station. "I need Okita-san now," he said the second someone picked up.

Aoshi, meanwhile, had reached the other side of the museum and pulled out his semi-automatic, and was ready to use it. He edged over to the door, and was immediately relieved to hear Tokio's voice:

"…already that the Shinuchi isn't here, Wu-_san_," she was saying, voice relatively calm except for a slight waver near the end that ruined her snarky delivery of the honorific.

"Then where the hell is it?!?" Wu asked.

"Kyoto," Tokio replied, with more than a little satisfaction in her voice.

There was a long pause, and then Aoshi heard a yelp that sounded uncomfortably like Misao's.

"What the hell are you—" Tokio began.

"Show me where you're hiding the Shinuchi or I _will_ kill both of you right here right now!" Wu snapped.

"It's not here you asshole!" Misao shouted, and Aoshi's heart jerked; oh _shit_, this was _bad_.

"You shut up!" Wu ordered.

"Okay—okay!" Tokio snapped. "I'll take you to the room, just so you can see I'm not lying to you!"

Aoshi swore softly under his breath, then eased away from the door. Once he was back far enough, he ran back toward the offices and found Shikijou on the phone:

"He's checking it out now, sir—"

Aoshi took the phone from him.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Okita," came the immediate reply.

"Wu's here, and he has Misao and Tokio-san in the storage room. Get Saitou here now."

"Got it—evacuate everyone right now," Okita said.

"Yes sir," Aoshi said, and then hung up.

"What do we do now?"

"Evacuate the museum," Aoshi said, staring at Misao's empty chair and feeling so pissed off at himself for not thinking of this possibility that he was surprised he could think as clearly as he was. "Everyone is to leave immediately. Pull all guards on duty. I want everyone out in five minutes—no, less than five."

"Yes sir," Shikijou said. He hesitated a moment. "I'm sorry Shinomori-san," he said quietly, voice shamed.

"It's not your fault," Aoshi said. "It's mine. It never occurred to me that he'd try to use the rep visits to get in here." A pause. "Go on Yamaguchi-san, start evacuating people."

"Yes sir," Shikijou said quietly, nodding, and he went off to do Aoshi's bidding.

After a moment, Aoshi blew out a long, controlled breath, then straightened and began back for the storage area—until Saitou and the others got there, he didn't have the means to go in, but he could damn well stand guard over it and try to keep an eye on things until his back-up arrived.

Back at the station, Okita began systematically searching for Kenshin. He'd already mobilized several units, and they were on their way to the museum. He'd also called Saitou over the radio and sent him on over there. Now, he just needed to find Kenshin and get over there before Saitou did, because Okita knew his friend very well, and Saitou talking in a deadly calm voice the way he had over the radio was a _very_ bad thing.

He finally found the redhead in one of the recording rooms, sitting in front of one of the machines with earphones on. He was frowning in concentration, a pen in one hand and a pad of paper in front of him, with some of his chicken-scratch on it. Okita strode in, ripped the earphones off and said,

"Wu's taken Tokio-san and Misao hostage."

Kenshin blinked.

"How long ago?"

"Not sure, but I've already sent people over there to help Shinomori with crowd control. Hajime's on his way too."

Kenshin's eyes went wide.

"Oh shit," he said, abruptly getting up. "We need to go _now_."

"I'll drive," Okita said with a nod as they left the room.

"You drive like a maniac," Kenshin said, frowning.

"Little old ladies honk and yell at you, Himura," Okita replied dryly.

Kenshin sent him a flat look that he ignored, and decided to keep quiet.

Back at the museum, Enishi and Kamatari were making the evacuation difficult for Shikijou and the others.

"But what the hell's going on?" Enishi demanded as Shikijou physically pushed him towards the doors. "I didn't hear a fire alarm go off or anything!"

"Shinomori-san ordered everyone to evacuate the museum," Shikijou said.

"_But why_?!?" Enishi and Kamatari yelled in infuriated unison.

"Shinomori-san ordered everyone to evacuate the museum," Shikijou stubbornly repeated. "Now please don't make this anymore difficult than it already is Yukishiro-san, Honjou-san."

"Did someone bust a gas main?" Kamatari asked, squirming ineffectually to get out of the very large Sato Hyottoko's grasp.

"Shinomori-san ordered everyone to evacuate immediately, Honjou-san," Hyottoko said.

"That doesn't tell me anything you fat headed ox!" Kamatari snapped. "Now tell me what the fuck's going on or I'll turn you into a woman!"

"Did Tokio authorize this too?" Enishi demanded. "Where is she? I want to talk to someone who'll explain what the fuck's going on!"

Kamatari stopped struggling at that, and looked around.

"Enishi, where's Tokio-chan?" he asked suddenly, looking worried.

Enishi paused in his own struggles and looked around, frowning when he didn't see Tokio standing outside with everyone else. He turned back to Shikijou.

"Where…is Tokio?" he growled.

"Yukishiro-san, if you keep fighting me on this I _will_ use my Taser on you," Shikijou warned.

"_Where is she goddamn it_?!?" Enishi bellowed. "Why isn't she outside here with everyone else?!?"

"Is she still inside?" Kamatari demanded. "What's going on? Tell us—and stop shoving us out the fucking doors like cattle you assholes!" he roared, taking Hyottoko down with a well-placed kick to the knee.

"Honjou-san!" Shikijou barked. "Don't forget that we're police officers! You can and will be arrested and charged for assaulting an officer!"

"Fuck you!" Kamatari yelled. "Where's Tokio?"

Back-up arrived just then, and Shikijou breathed a sigh of relief.

"Look, both of you, just do what you're told, all right?" he snapped testily.

"Where is Tokio?" Enishi asked, voice dangerously low, eyes diamond hard.

"Yukishiro-san—"

"You fuckin' tell me right now where she is or I'll go find out for myself!" Enishi bellowed. "And don't fuckin' think you can scare me by sayin' you'll arrest me!"

Shikijou gestured for the officers who had just arrived on the scene to help him and Hyottoko with Enishi and Kamatari, and five came over to do just that.

By unspoken agreement, the minute the officers came over Enishi and Kamatari simultaneously threw the first punches, and in a few minutes they'd turned it into an all-out brawl that was so loud Aoshi came running to see what was going on. It took him precious minutes to get the group to quiet down, and by then, Enishi was gone; he'd used the cover of the brawl to slip back into the museum and go looking for Tokio in the only place she could be, the storage rooms, since the administrative wing and both the upper and lower levels of the museum proper had been cleared out. His absence wasn't noticed until Kamatari had been handcuffed and put in the back seat of one of the black-and-whites, and it was Shikijou who noticed:

"Where's Yukishiro?" he asked suddenly. "Why isn't he back there too?"

The other officers went looking for him, and came back a few moments later to report that Yukishiro Enishi was nowhere in the crowd behind the yellow tape.

Shikijou swore, remembering what Enishi had yelled just before the fight had started:

_"You fuckin' tell me right now where she is or I'll go find out for myself!"_

"He's in the museum!" Shikijou yelled. He ran back up the stairs and into the museum and yelled, "Shinomori-san, Yukishiro's still in here! He got away from us during the scuffle!"

"Find him!" Aoshi called back. "Let me know when Saitou and the others get here!"

"Yes sir!"

Shikijou went back outside, grabbed two officers and the three of them began searching the evacuated areas for any sign of Enishi.

When Okita and Kenshin arrived on the scene several minutes later, it was to find Anji trying to reach the car Kamatari was in, and three officers ordering him to stand down.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Okita yelled, jogging over. "What's going on here?"

"Kamatari needs medical attention now," Anji said, looking very upset. "He and Yukishiro-san got into a fight with the officers—"

"Let him by," Okita barked, and the three officers did as they were told.

Kenshin was already at the car. He'd opened the door and helped Kamatari sit facing the street, one foot on the pavement.

"Jesus Christ," Okita said when he saw Kamatari's face—his left cheekbone had been smashed and one of his eyes was swollen shut. There was blood coming out of his nose and his lip was starting to swell up.

"I'll call for an ambulance," Kenshin said, face tight with displeasure, as he straightened and went around to the front to grab the radio handset.

"What the hell happened?" Okita asked Kamatari as Anji squatted down in front of the small man.

"They wouldn't tell us where Tokio-chan was," Kamatari managed to get out. "Just kept saying Shinomori-san had ordered us to evacuate. But Tokio-chan wasn't out here with the rest of them."

Okita shut his eyes and rubbed the heels of his hands against them; he'd forgotten about Enishi and Kamatari. They were just as protective of Tokio as Saitou. And, it would appear, just as homicidally devoted.

"So where's Enishi?" Okita asked.

"I told him to go look for her," Kamatari said, and Okita swore, long and loud.

"Damn it, I really wish you hadn't done that," he said miserably. "Wu's taken Tokio and Misao hostage in the storage rooms."

Kamatari looked horrified; Anji dropped the rag he'd been using to clean Kamatari up, the big man's face white.

"Oh gods," Kamatari whispered.

"Himura," Okita said sharply.

"I heard," Kenshin said, straightening. His face was grim and his eyes were no longer their usual soft amethyst, but a hard, brilliant gold.

"Does Shinomori know Enishi's inside?" Okita asked.

"I'm not sure," Kamatari replied, shaken. "They shoved me into the car once they got a hold of me."

"I think he might know," Anji volunteered. "Three of them went in a little bit before you and Himura-san arrived. I'm not sure to what purpose, but if Yukishiro-san's still in there, then maybe to look for him. Presumably, Shinomori-san would know about that—he's inside."

"Go check it out Himura," Okita ordered. "I'll stay out here and wait for Hajime."

Kenshin nodded and strode toward the stairs. Okita took off his hat, set it on top of the black-and-white's roof, then ran a hand through his hair.

"Haji's gonna blow a gasket," he muttered.

"Is he on his way?" Kamatari asked as Anji once again began his treatment.

"Yeah," Okita said. "And when he gets here Wu's ass is grass. Haji's _pissed_."

Kamatari smirked grimly.

"Good," he said. "I knew he was worth the trouble."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Rather than convince Wu that the Shinuchi was no longer in the museum's hands, showing him that it wasn't in the storage rooms convinced him that Tokio was hiding it from him.

Which was why Tokio was now kneeling on the floor, hands tied behind her back by Misao, who had been forced to at gun point, with Wu standing over her and his gun pressed against the back of her head. And the only thing Tokio could think was:

_Gods…he's **such** a big fat **baby**!_

Misao was sitting on the floor nearby, also tied up courtesy of Wu, and sending him a murderous glare. Judging solely from the other woman's expression, Tokio was pretty sure the young woman was thinking the same thing she was.

"For the last _freaking_ time, you utter and complete idiot, the Shinuchi…isn't…here!" Tokio yelled.

"Stop jerkin' me around!" Wu bellowed, digging the gun into the back of her head harder. "You think I'm stupid or something?!? Like I'd believe you sent the damn thing to Kyoto!"

"Well whether you want to believe it or not is your problem, ahou, but that's where it is," Tokio snapped.

Wu grabbed the neat little bun she'd put her hair up into this morning and used it to jerk her head back at a very uncomfortable angle.

"Where is it?!?" he roared in her face, and Tokio took that opportunity to spit in his eye.

He flinched and let go of her, using the hand that wasn't holding the gun to wipe the spit away. Then he grabbed her by the neck, placed the gun against her temple and made a great production of releasing the safety.

"Maybe you don't understand the situation you're in, Takagi-_san_," he said, squeezing her throat for emphasis. "You are tied up and I have a loaded gun pointed at your head. And I'm running out of patience with you and your shit!"

"Well I ran out of patience for your shit a long time ago!" Tokio shouted back. "I already told you the Shinuchi isn't here asshole!"

"Don't lie to me!" Wu screamed. "You think I don't know you're a manipulative little cunt?!?"

"Don't call her that you fucker!" Enishi bellowed, throwing the door to the room wide open and charging in.

Wu immediately levered the gun at him and fired.

"Enishi!" Tokio shrieked.

Wu's bullet clipped Enishi's left ear, but hardly slowed him down, and Wu got ready to fire again. Misao managed to get up to her feet, and ran at Enishi and knocked him out of the way with her shoulder, and Wu's second bullet split the end of her braid. Tokio threw herself at Wu's legs to stop him from trying for a third shot, which she did, but in the process also made it that much easier to for him to grab her again and shove the barrel of the gun up against her head.

"I'll kill her right here if you try to play hero again," Wu promised.

Enishi, Misao on the floor next to him, watched Wu with hate alive in his eyes.

"Fucking prick," he snarled.

"Get up," Wu ordered.

Enishi slowly did as he'd been told, and helped Misao up too, keeping hold of her arm once she was on her feet.

"I'll trade you hostages," Enishi said suddenly. "Me for the secretary."

"Enishi-san—" Misao began, but one look from Enishi silenced her.

"No deal," Wu said.

"What the hell do you want her for?" Enishi asked with a snort. "Me and Tokio're the ones you want. She's just some temp we hired."

"I said no deal, now shut the fuck up!" Wu snapped.

"That's just too fuckin' bad," Enishi said a second before he hurled Misao out of the room and kicked the door shut behind her.

Wu's gun immediately left Tokio's head and he shot at Enishi again, and this time he hit the white haired man's left hand.

"Enishi!" Tokio yelled, horrified.

Wu shoved her down to her knees again and put the barrel against the back of her head.

"You shut up," he said from between gritted teeth. "When I'm done with the hero over there you're next."

When Aoshi heard the gunfire, he swore loudly.

"Where the _fuck_ is Saitou?!?" he yelled out into the museum.

"Aoshi!" Kenshin shouted, drawing Aoshi's gaze, and the younger man sighed.

"It's about goddamn time!" Aoshi shouted.

"Saitou's not here yet," Kenshin said as he ran over, and Aoshi closed his eyes.

"What's the hold-up?!?" he asked. "We've had three shots fired in there!"

"Saitou was at Wu's house on surveillance duty—" Kenshin reminded him.

"_Fuck surveillance duty_!" Aoshi bellowed. "For all we know Wu killed his hostages already! Meanwhile, we're out here with our thumbs up our asses because some stupid shit at the precinct decided that Saitou should be sitting in a fucking car across the street from a house all the way on the other side of fucking Tokyo that everyone knew Wu wasn't ever going back to!"

Kenshin's face was set in stony lines.

"I'm filing a complaint when this is over," Aoshi said bitterly. "Having our hands tied until Saitou gets here—this is fucking bullshit!"

"Aoshi!" came a muffled yell from behind the doors.

Kenshin and Aoshi looked at each other, and then Aoshi threw the doors open and Misao came barreling through them; Kenshin caught her before she stumbled to the floor.

"Aoshi, you have to hurry, I think he shot Enishi-san," Misao gasped. "I don't know what happened, he just threw me out of the room and then the doors shut and then I heard a gun shot and then Tokio-san was screaming his name and—"

"Fuck this, we're not waiting anymore," Kenshin snapped. "It's too bad Saitou didn't get here on time, we're going in now!"

The two of them helped Misao out of the museum and down the stairs, and met Okita halfway up; he had his semi-automatic out and had begun running up the stairs when he'd heard the shots, shouting at the officers to keep the crowd, now numbering in the hundreds and boasting a few reporters, from crossing the police line or he'd personally shoot all of them regardless of whose fault it was.

"What happened?" Okita demanded.

"We can't wait anymore," Kenshin said. "Misao says Wu might have shot Enishi."

"Fuck!" Okita shouted. He turned around. "We need body armor now! And I want another ambulance—we might have wounded!"

At that moment, a car came screaming around the corner and screeched to a halt bare millimeters from crashing into one of the news vans, its tires still smoking. The driver door flew open, and Saitou got out and immediately bellowed,

"Get these fucking news vans out of the way or I'm arresting every one of you right now and confiscating your equipment!"

One of the braver reporters began protesting, but Saitou reached over, grabbed him by the shirt front and lifted him off the ground.

"I'm not asking I'm telling!" he roared. "_Move your shit_!"

He then shoved the man away and strode to the nearest black-and-white, which happened to be the one Kamatari and Anji were at.

"Body armor!" he barked at one of the uniformed men, who jumped to do his bidding.

Saitou's gaze went to Kamatari's face.

"Who did that?" he asked.

"A few of your men," Kamatari said.

"Kamatari was being difficult during the evacuation," Anji was quick to explain, sending the smaller man a disapproving look.

"They wouldn't tell me where Tokio-chan was," Kamatari snapped.

"That doesn't mean you should have started a fist fight," Anji snapped back. "And now Yukishiro-san's in there, maybe bleeding to death, because you two were too hard-headed and wouldn't listen!"

"Then they should have told us where Tokio-chan was!" Kamatari yelled, and then turned on Saitou. "And you! Just where in the hell have _you_ been, huh?"

"No excuse," Saitou said as the officer returned with his vest. "I should have been here an hour ago when this shit started." He removed his semi-automatic from its holster, got into the vest and then picked up his gun from where he'd set it on top of the black-and-white. "But I'm finishing it now."

"She better come out without a scratch on her," Kamatari snarled. "I'll hold you responsible if she doesn't."

Saitou didn't respond; he pulled back and then released the slide mechanism of his weapon, then walked toward the stairs, where Okita, Kenshin and Aoshi, already in their body armor and with their own weapons ready, were waiting for him.

"You better crucify that son of a bitch for trying to hurt her, Saitou!" Kamatari yelled at his back, scrambling out of the back of the black-and-white. "You crucify him or I'll crucify you!"

Saitou didn't pause when he reached his waiting comrades; he strode right by them, and they fell into step behind him, everyone quiet and grim-faced and not relishing what they might find.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Where is he?!?_ Tokio thought frantically, her heart in her throat as she watched Enishi clutch his shot hand to his body. _Where is he?!? He should have been here by now! It should have been him coming in here, not Enishi…._

Wu's grip on Tokio's neck tightened and brought her out of her head. Enishi was breathing hard, and he was dripping blood all over the cement floor; there was a large puddle of it in front of him. He was standing with his feet planted firmly apart, and his glasses were hanging half off his face.

And he was grinning.

"What's a matter asshole? Aren't you satisfied with the hostages you've got now?" he asked. "Or did you want three? Three would a been selfish, Wu—two's more'n enough."

"Shut up stupid ass," Wu snapped. "Was that your great plan? To get all shot up? Because if it was you did an outstanding job."

"Actually, my plan was to find Tokio," Enishi said. "Now that that part's been accomplished, I'm tryin' a sort out how to get her the fuck away from you. Then how to get out of here. One step at a time, you know? Blood loss makes it sort of hard to think everything out all together."

"Enishi," Tokio said softly, staring at his hand.

Wu jostled her roughly.

"Shut up," he ordered.

"Oi, treat her right asshole," Enishi snapped, glaring.

"Or what?" Wu asked with a sneer. "You'll bleed on me?"

The officers had thrown procedure out the window, since they knew Wu was alone, and Misao had told them Wu's location. So Saitou and Okita had the front and Aoshi and Kenshin were bringing up the rear, and Saitou and Okita were striding down the long hall briskly. Their pace slowed as they began hearing voices. It took Saitou a few seconds to pick out Enishi's voice—good, he was well enough to talk, at least. The other voice was unfamiliar, but male, so that had to be Wu. The lack of noise from Tokio bothered him, but he pushed that aside. If she wasn't talking, maybe it was because she was unconscious—with any luck, she'd been knocked out, because he just couldn't see her fainting. He refused to even acknowledge the other, and unfortunately far more likely, cause for her silence.

Saitou and Okita stopped just outside the doors of the room. Kenshin and Aoshi slipped to station themselves on either side of the doors.

"Shut up," Wu's voice ordered.

_One…_

"Oi, treat her right asshole," Enishi's voice sharply ordered.

_Two…_

"Or what? You'll bleed on me?" Wu asked.

_Three._

The doors behind Enishi exploded open and he quickly crouched down to avoid getting caught in the officers' sights. Saitou and Okita moved like blurs at Wu, who'd turned his gun on them and was shooting. Kenshin grabbed Enishi by the shirt collar and hauled Enishi behind him, so that Kenshin, in his body armor, acted as a shield against further injury, and Aoshi covered Saitou and Okita, returning fire just close enough to Wu to make him nervous but far enough away that there was no danger to Tokio.

Saitou and Okita reached Wu at the same time. Okita threw his own gun aside, then grabbed Wu's wrist and snapped it in a direction it was definitely not supposed to bend and took his weapon from him; Saitou hauled back and punched Wu in the face, breaking his nose and spraying blood everywhere. Wu went flying backwards with the force of the blow and took Tokio with him. The small man slammed into the cannon carriage that the assistants had just finished mocking up two days ago. So because the pins and screws hadn't been installed yet, when Wu hit it, the carriage was instantly demolished. Tokio landed hard on her side on several of the pieces and let out a yelp. In the next second, Okita was crouching over her asking her if she was all right.

"Yes I'm fine, now untie me damn it!" she said, but her ribs were throbbing and it didn't come out firm and waspish like she'd wanted it to, but wavering and scared.

Okita nodded, produced his switchblade and freed her hands with a flick of his wrist. That was when he noticed that Saitou was beating the shit out of Wu.

"Fuck!" he bellowed. "Stop him goddamn it!" he shouted at Aoshi, who was already halfway there. "Stop him before he kills the shit!"

Kenshin was up and running too, yelling for Saitou to stop. Aoshi tackled Saitou to the floor from behind and sent them both flying into the rack holding the rifles, resulting in the rifles falling all over them.

"Help him!" Okita shouted at Kenshin, who nodded, scrambling past Wu to where Aoshi was grappling with a very determined and very furious Saitou.

Okita left Tokio's side to check on Wu. He nearly threw up when he saw what was left of the man's face—Saitou had moved beyond pissed into a level of rage that Okita hadn't even realized was possible.

Matsumoto the attorney hadn't known how right he was when he'd called Saitou Hajime a barbarian.

"Saitou!" Aoshi was yelling. "Stop sir, please—I'd really rather not have to hit you!"

"Saitou!" Kenshin shouted, throwing himself into the fray. "Snap out of it goddamn it!"

"Sir please stop!" Aoshi begged, grunting when Saitou grabbed his head and tried to slam it into the cement floor—quick reflexes saved him from getting his skull cracked open.

"Screw it, hit him!" Kenshin ordered, then yelped when Saitou managed to get a good hold on him and threw him off. Kenshin slammed into the wreckage of the carriage and groaned.

Saitou got a good hit in on Aoshi, slamming his fist into the younger man's stomach so hard that the only reason Aoshi didn't throw up was because he hadn't eaten anything since eighty-thirty that morning. He felt stomach acid burn a path up his throat but managed to swallow it down, then staggered to his feet and went after Saitou, who was striding toward where Okita was standing over Wu. When Okita noticed Saitou's approach he quickly placed himself between Saitou and Wu.

"Hajime, I'll fuckin' rip you a new one!" he warned. "Stop!"

Aoshi managed to slip in between the two men and abruptly kicked Saitou in the face, and Saitou's head snapped back and he wobbled a little before he fell over and landed on his knees with a surprised grunt.

Aoshi and Okita watched him, Okita wary, Aoshi pained; Kenshin had turned over on his stomach and was watching with a grimace. Tokio, who'd gone immediately to Enishi's side and removed his tie to wrap it around his bleeding hand, and Enishi were also watching, both more than a little taken aback.

After a long silence, Aoshi croaked,

"I'm sorry sir."

Saitou blinked and looked up at him, then brought a hand up to his bleeding mouth, dabbed at his split lip and looked at the blood on his fingers. Then he met Aoshi's gaze.

"Don't worry about it," he said finally.

A loud moan from Wu brought everyone's attention to him. Before Saitou could even think about attacking him again, Okita turned, reached down and punched the fallen man as hard as he could and effectively knocked him out.

"You have the right to remain silent," Okita announced with a dark smirk.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Previews of Chapter 24: After BOOM:_

Okita slapped his forehead and let out a sound of aggravation:

"And now they're gonna start a fight because they're emotionally _retarded_," Okita snapped to no one in particular.

---

"We were worried about you kitten," he said. "If it'd been the other way around, you would have done the same."

"I doubt I would have started a fist fight with the officers, Kamatari," Tokio said dryly.

"Well fine, but the hell you would have gone along and not asked questions."

---

"She hit me sir," the man said.

"I _slapped_ you you dumb ass," Tokio corrected waspishly.

---

"Come home with me tonight," he murmured against her skin, and she froze, surprised then moved so she could meet his gaze and see if she'd just imagined that.

As it turned out, she hadn't.

He had just asked her to go home with him.

And not to sleep, either.

* * *

Cyber cookies for whoever can name the movie I shamelessly took the "shooting the plastic" scene from. Hint: black-and-white, Bogie & (Audrey) Hepburn, remade in mid-1990s. 


	24. After BOOM

**PART THREE OF A THREE PART POST! READ CHAPTERS 22 & 23 BEFORE CONTINUING!**

And if you did already, ignore that.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

bokken: a wooden sword used in kenjutsu; in both the RK manga and anime, you'll sometimes see Kaoru and Yahiko swingin' 'em around, though the shinai (bamboo sword) seems to be their preferred weapon of choice. : ).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Twenty-Four: After BOOM_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

So of course the first thing that happened once the hostage situation was over and Wu was in custody was that Saitou and Tokio got into a _huge_ fight in front of pretty much everyone.

About the only bright side was that by the time they got into their very public blow-out, the reporters were gone, having gotten an interview from Tokio and one from Okita, since Saitou's split lip was being looked at by the paramedics and he wasn't available for comment. Tokio had asked the paramedics to hold off on taking Enishi to the hospital as she wanted to go with him, and because Enishi was in pretty stable condition, they agreed, but asked her not to take too long.

And she wouldn't have.

If she and Saitou hadn't gotten into their fight.

It began when Saitou started chewing Aoshi and the security team out for letting Wu slip past them to begin with. Tokio had just given her interview and was on her way to the ambulance when she saw the group, and frowning, she made her way over to see what was going on, since she couldn't hear.

"…disgrace to the MPD," Saitou was saying. "What the hell were you thinking, letting him in without at least asking for identification? You didn't even bother with the most basic precautions! Even civilians would have known to do that much!"

"What's going on here?" Tokio interrupted.

"You haven't left yet?" Saitou asked gruffly, eyeing her with more than a little concern and displeasure.

"Why are you chewing them out?" Tokio demanded.

Saitou stared at her, incredulous; Misao, looking horrified, was shaking her head and mouthing "No! Run! Save yourself!"

"Are you out of your mind, woman?" Saitou demanded. "What do you mean why am I chewing them out? They didn't do their fucking jobs, that's why!"

Tokio sent him a very displeased look.

"They did too do their jobs—you all got here in time, didn't you?" she said, and Saitou's jaw dropped a little.

"Did you just forget the last hour and a half or what?" he asked. "Are you fucking kidding me? They let Wu in in the _first place_! If they'd done what they were supposed to—"

"They didn't know what Wu looked like," Tokio interrupted.

"They're supposed to ask for ID!"

"Don't yell at me!"

"Then stop talking like you know what the hell's going on!"

That was about the time Kenshin and Okita noticed what was going on—the escalating voices were a big clue.

Okita slapped his forehead and let out a sound of aggravation:

"And now they're gonna start a fight because they're emotionally _retarded_," he snapped to no one in particular.

"Come on, before he goes ape shit again," Kenshin said wearily.

"He won't hit her," Okita assured as they walked over to the fight. "No matter how mad she makes him, he'll never hit her."

"It's not Tokio-dono this one is afraid for," Kenshin dryly returned. "It's everyone else."

"Good point," Okita muttered.

When they arrived, Tokio and Saitou were nose to nose and yelling at the top of their lungs, clearly not even aware of the attention they were drawing. Aoshi and the rest of the security team looked mortified; the museum employees and the people who'd stopped to watch were looking on in amazement; Kenshin was cringing faintly; and Okita was feeling a little nostalgic:

_Man…this is just like high school all over again…only Tokio-san can scream **a** **lot** louder than Aioi-chan could._ _And her voice doesn't get all screechy. Wonder how she does that?_

"If you want to blame someone, then this whole thing is _your_ fault!" Tokio bellowed.

Saitou was visibly startled by that accusation.

"What?" he asked, no longer yelling.

"Who do you think is going to get chewed out when your superiors hear about this? Because it sure as hell isn't going to be them! The guy in charge is the one that catches all the shit when it hits the fan, or do they do it different in the Bunkyo Ward precinct?"

Saitou was obviously taken aback, but didn't get to reply, because one of the paramedics yelled,

"Takagi-san!"

"What!" she roared, glaring in the man's direction.

He didn't even bat an eyelid:

"Are you coming with the ambulance or not, ma'am?"

"I'm coming," she snapped, and stomped off toward it, leaving Saitou standing there staring after her with an expression that was not quite bewilderment but very close. She leapt into the ambulance with the help of one of the paramedics, and then the doors slammed shut and it quickly pulled out and began speeding off toward the hospital.

"I believe that's called 'touché,'" Okita said finally.

Saitou blinked, then looked over at him.

"Shut up asshole," he ordered, frowning.

In the ambulance, Tokio took Enishi's not-bandaged hand in hers and used her other hand to hold onto the seat she was sitting on.

"How you doin'?" she asked with a thin smile.

Enishi smiled back faintly.

"You mean aside from the extra hole in my ear and the new one in my hand?"

She laughed a little.

"Yeah, aside from that."

"Okay, I guess. Feelin' a little light-headed from the blood loss, and my ear and hand really fuckin' hurt, but otherwise I'm good."

Tokio swallowed, and her smile was a little more forced.

"Stupid boy," she chided gently, "charging in there like that. You didn't even have a vest on."

"Yeah, I'm lucky Wu's a terrible shot," Enishi joked. "I might be pushing up daisies otherwise." Tokio choked, and he sent her a dry look. "Geez, Tokio, it was just a joke."

"You need to work on your material," Tokio shot back, but there wasn't any bite to her voice. She laid her head down on the stretcher next to him.

Enishi let go of her hand and placed his on her head.

"Oi, don't go soft on me, okay?" he said, joking but more than a little concerned. "It freaks me out when you get all mushy."

This time she laughed for real and when she raised her head her eyes were tearing up but she was smiling. He grinned at her.

"See? I'll be fine—right?" Enishi asked, looking up at the paramedic attending to his shot ear.

"Yes sir," he assured. "You'll be quite fine."

Tokio smiled at the man, then looked back down at Enishi who was watching her with a sort of worried expression on his face.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded, brushing his hair off his forehead.

"Yeah," she said quietly, "I'm fine."

There was a long pause, and then Enishi said,

"He was probably really worried about you."

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out, so she closed her mouth and quietly cleared her throat and then murmured,

"I'd rather not talk about that, okay?"

He eyed her for a minute, then rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Yeah okay," he muttered.

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

When they got to the hospital, Tokio filled out all of Enishi's information and then borrowed the phone at the nurses' station to call Tomoe and tell her that she should come to the hospital, please, it was very important. No, no one was in danger, but she still needed to come. Yes, Tokio was telling her the truth, no she wouldn't lie about something like this, okay she'd see her in a little while, good-bye. Once that was taken care of, she asked about Honjou Kamatari, and was told that he was being looked at but she'd be able to see him in a little bit, and would she mind please sitting in the waiting area until Honjou-san was ready for visitors?

So Tokio plopped down into a chair and put her head in her hands and stared down at her heels and the linoleum floor they were planted on and replayed the whole day, from morning to now, in her head, and decided that as far as exciting days went, this one took the cake—it was barely three o'clock and she was ready to go home and curl up in her bed and sleep and pretend today had never happened.

Especially her fight with Saitou.

The very memory made her wince. He had accused her of talking about things she didn't know anything about, and the truth of the matter was that he was right. It hadn't been any of her business. But she hadn't liked the way he was talking to the security team, as if they'd botched the investigation somehow. So okay, they'd let Wu in, but it had been an honest mistake, she was sure. They'd always come through for her before, and while it would have been nice if they hadn't stumbled right when it was most important, Tokio was willing to be generous because she remembered other times when they'd performed in an exemplary fashion. Saitou had been acting like they were a bunch of chronic fuck-ups, like they were the Hirumas or something, and Tokio hadn't liked it. She'd grown fond of the security team in the short time that they'd been watching over her museum and her.

She was also willing to concede that her overreaction had been a manifestation of stress. Saitou had gotten to beat the hell out of Wu and release a little of his, but Tokio had had no such opportunity. And she'd kind of picked a fight to get rid of a little of hers and it had backfired spectacularly because now she felt like a shrew and he had looked completely blindsided when she'd left him.

He'd had every right to feel that way, too.

"Takagi-san?" Someone tapped her shoulder, and Tokio looked up, sniffling, and realized with sudden horror that she was crying and when had that started?

She swiped at her eyes and stood up and tried to pretend like she hadn't been caught crying.

"Yes?"

"You can go see Honjou-san now," the nurse, a woman maybe five years older than her, said. She sent Tokio a sympathetic look. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Tokio briskly assured. "What room is he in?"

"345, right down the way here."

"Thank you—when Kiyosato Tomoe arrives, please fetch me."

The nurses bobbed her head.

"I'll make sure someone finds you," she promised.

Tokio nodded and began walking toward Kamatari's room. When she arrived, she knocked on the closed door.

"Come in," Kamatari said, obviously trying to sound bright and cheery.

Tokio turned the knob and pushed the door open and poked her head in…and shrieked when she saw her friend's face.

"Kamatari!"

The man winced, then hissed; Tokio hurried to his bedside.

"Oh gods what happened?" Tokio asked, hands covering her mouth. "Who did that to you?!?"

The sounds of rubber soles squeaking against the linoleum announced the approach of three nurses, and they skidded to a stop in the front of the door.

"What is it?" the same nurse Tokio had just spoken to asked; she was leading the group. "What happened?"

"It's okay," Kamatari assured, waving them off and attempting to smile. "She hadn't seen me until now. Wasn't prepared for it."

The nurses reluctantly left, and shut the door behind them. Kamatari sighed, then looked up at Tokio, who had tears running down her face.

"Oh honey, don't cry," Kamatari said, opening his arms and she leaned down and buried her face in his chest and cried into his hospital gown. "It looks worse than it is, really. I'm okay, really, promise. Now stop crying, your mascara's running and you look like your face's melting."

It was quite some time before Tokio stopped, and then Kamatari ordered her to wash her face, which she did, before settling down in the only chair in the room and grabbing his hand.

"I think that's the first time I've ever had a woman cry over me," he said thoughtfully, and Tokio sniffled and laughed.

Kamatari smiled at her—or tried to.

"Much better. Of course, you look pale as death now, but at least you don't look like your face is slowly detaching itself from your skull. Never a good look, kitten. For anyone."

Tokio smiled and squeezed his hand.

"What happened?" she asked, and Kamatari sighed.

"Oh, you know me and Enishi-chan—we're too impatient for our good, it would seem. They wouldn't tell us why they were evacuating the museum, and then when we realized you weren't outside with everyone else, we started demanding to know where you were and they wouldn't tell us that either. So we started a really huge fight and at some point I yelled at Enishi-chan to go find you, and I took the beating for the both of us."

Tokio closed her eyes, grimacing.

"Oh Kamatari," she murmured.

Kamatari squeezed her hand.

"We were worried about you kitten," he said. "If it'd been the other way around, you would have done the same."

"I doubt I would have started a fist fight with the officers, Kamatari," Tokio said dryly.

"Well fine, but the hell you would have gone along and not asked questions." His gaze turned worried. "Are you okay?"

She smiled at him.

"I'm fine—that stupid stupid boy you sent in after me took the brunt of Wu's disappointment."

At that, Kamatari looked alarmed.

"Is he—" he began, struggling up out of the hospital bed.

"Shh—he's fine," Tokio assured, pressing him back into the pillows. "They've taken him up for surgery. He was shot in the hand, and there was some damage."

Kamatari watched her, then looked down at the sheet thrown over his legs, his good eye filled with guilt.

"Oi, don't get all dramatic," Tokio warned, rubbing his arm with her other hand. "He'll be fine. Enishi has ridiculous luck with this kind of thing."

"Luck runs out," Kamatari pointed out softly, still looking down at the sheet.

"Kamatari," Tokio said quietly, drawing his gaze to her face. She smiled at him. "Don't worry, okay? He'll be trying to strangle you for pinching his butt soon enough."

Kamatari smiled, and then started laughing.

"Okay, okay," he relented. "You've known him longer than I have, so I'll trust you on this one."

"Good." Tokio said in approval. Her eyes wandered over his face, and her gaze hardened. "I know you two started a fight, but that's still no excuse for the way they left your poor face."

"Well, there _were_ seven of them," Kamatari admitted with a shrug. "Seven-against-two and then seven-against-one ain't great odds. Now, if I'd had my _scythe_, of course, well that would have been a different story…."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tomoe was heartsick by the time she arrived at the hospital. She immediately asked for Yukishiro Enishi, and was told he was still in surgery, which made her hysterical, and then they told her that Takagi Tokio had been waiting for her and Tomoe should go up to the third floor and ask for her up there.

So when Tomoe arrived at the third floor she was frantic. And Tokio's appearance—disheveled hair and blood spattered shirt and bruised neck—made her even more frantic.

"What happened?!?" she demanded, normally calm and even voice becoming high. "Why is Enishi in surgery?!?"

Tokio stared at her, expression dangerous.

"Who told you he was in surgery?" she asked sharply.

"Downstairs—"

"Stupid asses!" Tokio snapped. She fumed for a second, then sighed and put her arm around the other woman's shoulders. "Come on, I'll explain what happened. I specifically told them not to say anything to you because I wanted to explain it myself and keep you from getting like this. _Idiots_."

They walked a ways down the hall, and then paused, and Tokio quietly explained what had happened and assured Tomoe that her little brother was fine and would be back on his feet in no time.

Tomoe cried on Tokio's shoulder in relief. Tokio awkwardly patted the other woman's back and decided it was really weird to see Tomoe cry.

Tomoe had a similar reaction to Tokio when she saw Kamatari's face—prompting Kamatari to ask, half-kidding, half-serious, if he was really that ugly—and shared in Tokio's anger at the overreaction on the part of the officers. And when Enishi got out of surgery finally and was put into a room one floor up, Tokio went with her to check on Enishi and make sure she hadn't been lying to everyone. To her relief, the white haired man, though still unconscious, was quite fine. The surgeon who'd worked on him explained to the two anxious women that Enishi's hand had sustained relatively minor damage, all things considered, and it was a miracle the bullet had missed as much as it had. Upon hearing that, Tokio grinned.

"Enishi's a special boy like that," she explained.

The surgeon smiled in faint amusement.

"I'm certainly inclined to agree with you, Takagi-san."

He outlined Enishi's treatment to them, and both women promised to hover over him and make sure the white haired man followed his orders to the letter. Once she was sure Tomoe was settled in all right and Enishi was doing okay, Tokio returned to Kamatari's room, and they sat and chatted for a while until his dinner came in. Tokio helped him eat, because his right wrist had been sprained and he couldn't do anything with his left hand to save his life.

She told Kamatari about the fight she and Saitou had had, and Kamatari was in the middle of chastising her when the door to the room opened and two men in police uniforms walked in, faces set in stern lines.

"Ma'am, we're going to have to ask you to step aside," one of them said, and Tokio blinked surprised.

"What?" She exchanged a baffled look with Kamatari. "Why?"

"Honjou Kamatari is under arrest for obstruction of justice and assaulting seven officers," the other man said, already shaking out his hand cuffs.

"Oi wait just a minute," Tokio began, rising.

"Ma'am, if you interfere you'll be placed under arrest as well," the man who'd spoken first warned.

"Look pal, don't try to threaten me, all right?" she snapped. "I've won arguments against a guy way scarier than you could ever hope to be, so you don't impress me. And if you think I'm going to let you cuff this man to his bed like some kind of criminal you _must_ be smoking some really great grass."

"Ma'am if you persist—" the first man began.

"Tokio-chan," Kamatari said suddenly, voice sharp. "Enishi."

Tokio's eyes widened in horror as she realized that two officers might, at this very moment, be trying to cuff Enishi to his bed—and poor Tomoe was there, all alone with her unconscious little brother, and still very upset.

She sped out of the room and used the stairs, because they were faster than waiting for the elevator, and then she exploded out of the stairwell and tore up the hall for Enishi's room, and reached it just time to hear Tomoe, sounding very upset, telling the officers not to cuff Enishi to the bed because of his injury.

"Oi!" Tokio yelled, storming into the room. "Get away from him!"

"Who the hell are—" one of the men began.

"Get away from him!" Tokio yelled. "Now!"

"Lady don't interfere—"

"You don't understand Japanese or something?" Tokio snapped. "I said get away from him right now!"

"Get her out of here," the man she'd cut off ordered the other guy, who nodded and moved toward Tokio. She ignored him, furious gaze on the man.

"Get away from him!"

"He's under arrest!" the man shouted.

"He's unconscious!" Tokio shouted back. "And it's not like he's gonna be up to moving around a whole lot once he wakes up!"

"Okay lady, let's go," the other officer said, grabbing her arm and beginning to shove her out the door.

"Let go of me!" Tokio yelled.

"Tokio-san!" Tomoe called.

"I said _let go_!" Tokio bellowed, and slapped the officer's left cheek with a resounding CRACK.

It was quiet for a moment, and then the man by Enishi's bed said,

"Cuff her."

"No!" Tomoe shouted.

"You stay where you are and don't make trouble or you'll take a trip down to the precinct!" he snapped, pointing at her.

Tokio, meanwhile, had her arms wrenched behind her back and cuffs slapped on her wrists with unnecessary force. The man then dragged her out into the hallway, and she fought him the whole way, yelling at the other man in Enishi's room to get away from Enishi.

"Oi!" came a very displeased voice that Tokio hadn't heard in a few hours, and when she looked up the hall she saw Saitou glaring at the officer who had her by the arm. "The _fuck_ are you doing?"

"She hit me sir," the man said.

"I _slapped_ you you dumb ass," Tokio corrected waspishly.

"Take those cuffs off her now," Saitou ordered, striding forward, face like thunder.

The man flinched.

"But sir—" he protested.

"It's not a request!" Saitou snapped. "Take those fucking cuffs off her now!"

The man jumped and did Saitou's bidding, and then Tokio was glaring at him and rubbing her red wrists. Saitou advanced on the man, and he towered over the other officer, who looked like he was seconds away from wetting himself.

"You…don't…_touch_…her. Is that clear?" Saitou asked softly. "_Never_. Or I break you in half."

"Yes sir," the man said, swallowing audibly.

"Now take the cuffs off Yukishiro and leave," Saitou ordered.

"B-but sir—"

"This isn't a negotiation dipshit—move!" Saitou barked, and the man jumped and scrambled into the room to do as Saitou bid.

"Thanks," Tokio murmured.

"Let me see your wrists," Saitou said gruffly, and she obligingly held them out to him.

He examined them and let out an annoyed grunt.

"Dumb ass," he muttered. "Those cuffs were too tight."

She shrugged. "I would have gotten around to bitching about that eventually," she said, and he smirked faintly at her.

"I have no doubt," he assured, rubbing his thumb over the red mark that was beginning to fade.

"So what brings you here?" she asked.

"These ahous," Saitou said just as the two officers emerged from Enishi's room, the one who'd cuffed the unconscious man to his bed red in the face…until he saw who'd ordered them to get lost.

Then his face turned sickly green.

"Boo," Saitou said dryly, and both men flinched and then beat a hasty retreat past him and Tokio, who was laughing.

"You're a jerk," she informed him.

"Yeah," he agreed, and she laughed again.

Tomoe appeared in the doorway, looking relieved and grateful.

"Thank you Saitou-san," she said, bowing.

Saitou shrugged.

"Don't mention it. A few of the men at the precinct felt like stirring up trouble, that's all."

"How many?" Tokio asked.

"Five—the two on the security team didn't file complaints," Saitou said, eyeing her with amusement. "They were willing to let bygones be bygones. The other assholes weren't feeling as generous and talked their superior into sending guys over here to guard the two 'delinquents'."

"Shikijou-san and Hyottoko-san are very understanding men," Tokio replied with authority, and Saitou rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, I'm pretty sure they were just afraid you'd go after them."

Tokio sent him an offended look.

"I resent that," she informed him.

"Good for you," was his dry reply.

Tokio rolled her eyes, then paused, and then slapped her forehead.

"Kamatari," she groaned. "I left him alone down there with those two officers—"

Saitou sighed, then tugged at her wrist and started for the elevators.

"Come on Chiisai," he said. "I'll go chase them away too."

"Well you don't have to act like it's such a chore you know," Tokio chided as they began walking up the hall together.

"It's not an act."

"I'll kick you, Hajime."

"That's called assaulting an officer Tokio, and I let you get away with it once tonight, but twice is pushing it."

"You're such a jerk!"

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is!"

Tomoe watched them turn the corner and disappear from her view (his hand still wrapped loosely around her wrist), and then their voices (still bickering) faded, and she cocked her head, thoughtful, then smiled faintly.

"I thought so," she murmured, nodding, then turned and went back into her brother's room to sit by his bedside and wait for him to awaken.

It was a little harder to get the men in Kamatari's room to leave, but Saitou enjoyed a challenge, and when they finally realized who they were dealing with, they stopped being so damn stubborn and left.

Kamatari sighed and lifted his left arm up a little so they could see the cuffs chaining him to his bed.

"Could you take these the hell off me please?" he asked wearily.

Saitou obligingly used the keys for his cuffs and very soon Kamatari was moving his wrist around experimentally.

"_So_ glad you chased those brutes away," he said to Saitou. "Real morons, both of them. And they treated my kitten very badly, telling her to be quiet and not interfere. Very rude, that."

"They do anything else?" Saitou inquired, one eyebrow raised.

"Well, now that you mention it…." Kamatari trailed off, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Stop that," Tokio ordered, frowning. "The Wolf's done more than enough damage today."

Kamatari pouted.

"Oh, boo on you," he muttered, and Tokio rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

"How's the smashed cheekbone?" Saitou asked, hands in his jeans pockets.

"I'll have to endure it until it heals," Kamatari said crankily.

"That sucks," Saitou replied with vague sympathy. "My father busted his cheekbone once," he added thoughtfully. "Took forever to knit, and once it did, he had a bump from where it hadn't fused together even."

"How'd your father smash his cheekbone?" Tokio asked, curious.

"My brother accidentally-on-purpose hit him with a practice bokken," Saitou replied casually.

Tokio and Kamatari stared at him.

"'Accidentally-on-purpose'?" Tokio repeated.

"Yeah—he didn't mean to hit him that hard. But he _was_ aiming for Dad's face," Saitou added.

Kamatari sent Tokio a LOOK. She frowned at him, and he held up his hands and sat back.

"Fine," he said in that "But-you'll-be-sorry" tone of voice. He then sent Saitou a stern look out of his good eye. "I thought I told you she wasn't to come out with a scratch on her."

Saitou's eyes immediately went to Tokio.

"Did you get hurt and not tell me?" he demanded.

"No!" she said. "I'm fine."

"She's got bruises all over her neck and all along her right side," Kamatari informed him.

"I'm fine," Tokio said wearily, not that she thought for a minute either man would listen to her.

And they didn't, of course.

"You said scratch," Saitou replied. "You didn't say anything about bruises."

"'Scratch' encompassed everything," Kamatari said. "And don't try to be cute, it doesn't suit you—particularly not when your lip is swollen almost twice its normal size."

"You wanna talk swollen?" Saitou asked with a raised eyebrow. "How about that eye—"

"Okay, that's enough," Tokio interrupted loudly. "Kamatari-chan, the doctors wanted you to rest."

"But he said—" Kamatari protested.

"He says lots of things," Tokio soothed. "Now try to get some sleep, okay? I'll come visit you tomorrow. And I'll bring you your clothes so you won't have to wear the hospital gown."

Kamatari eyed her, then sighed.

"Fine," he grumbled, "but he takes you home." He pointed at Saitou, who was eyeing Tokio with some displeasure—just what in the hell did she mean "He says lots of things"?

"Okay," Tokio agreed. "Now, promise to go to sleep?"

"Yes."

"And promise not to be a bother to the nurses?"

Kamatari looked offended:

"I am _not_ a bother!" he said, scandalized.

"No, of course not honey," Tokio assured, tucking the sheets around him. "But you can get very demanding sometimes, and the nurses aren't here to cater to you exclusively. So behave, all right?"

Kamatari grumbled under his breath but agreed, and Saitou and Tokio said their good-byes and left the room.

Saitou shut the door, then turned and found Tokio holding onto the wall.

"What?" he asked, alarmed.

Tokio let out a wobbly laugh.

"I think the stress's finally caught up to me," she said.

"You wanna sit down?" Saitou asked, walking to where she stood and taking hold of her shoulder.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's okay. I should probably eat something."

"What does that have to do with stress?"

"Nothing, I just realized I haven't eaten anything since this morning."

"I'll get you something," he offered.

"Okay," she said, then leaned back against him; he put am arm across her chest, the other around her stomach, and they stood like that in the hallway for a long time in silence.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. "About interfering, earlier."

"Don't worry about it."

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"Tokio, drop it, okay? I know you didn't mean it." he said, voice gruff.

Tokio sighed.

"Why won't you let me apologize properly?" she asked, exasperated. "It doesn't happen very often, you know."

"I realize it's something of an event," he dryly returned. "But once I got over it, I figured it was just the stress talking."

"When did you get so perceptive?" she teased.

"I've always been perceptive," he replied haughtily, "you just never took the time to notice before."

Tokio smiled and rubbed her hand up and down the arm under her chin.

"A grievous oversight on my part," she remarked.

"Quite," he agreed, and she laughed and leaned her head back and looked up at him. He met her gaze, then leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"Come home with me tonight," he murmured against her skin, and she froze, surprised then moved so she could meet his gaze and see if she'd just imagined that.

As it turned out, she hadn't.

He had just asked her to go home with him.

And not to sleep, either.

She didn't react for a long time, then quietly said,

"Not tonight, okay? My parents'll want to see me and make sure I'm okay. But…soon."

He didn't look particularly happy with her answer, but he didn't try to nag her into coming with him, for which she was grateful. All he said was,

"All right."

She smiled, turned around in his arms, reached up and took hold of his face and kissed him gently, mindful of his split lip.

"That…_really_ fucking hurts," he decided when she pulled back a little.

Tokio winced.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"I can take it," he muttered and she laughed and hugged him.

They left the hospital a few moments later, and Saitou tucked her into the unmarked car he'd arrived at the museum in and began driving for Nerima Ward. Tokio slumped back in her seat and placed her hand over his where it rested on the gear shift, and his thumb slowly brushed up and down her pinky. They rode in silence, until Saitou asked her for directions to her parents' house, and she quietly guided him down the right street until they were a block away and stopped at a light.

She was looking out the window, not really seeing anything, when her vision suddenly focused and she saw a playground in the distance. She looked over at him and murmured,

"Wait, make a left here when the light changes."

"I thought I had to keep going," he said, thrown off.

"Just make a left here," she insisted, and he sighed wearily but did as she asked when the light changed.

"Where those lights are," Tokio said, sitting up.

"This is a playground," he said as he parked by the sidewalk.

"Yeah," she said taking off her seat belt and opening her door and getting out. She pushed the door shut, then began walking toward the playground.

So because he didn't have any other options, Saitou killed the engine and got out and followed her.

He found her at the swings, just starting to gain a little momentum, and he thought about asking her what in the hell she was doing but decided he didn't want to interrupt whatever weird whim had taken her. So he plopped down on a bench and took out a cigarette and lit it and leaned his elbows on his knees and watched her swing higher and higher, the chains creaking and squeaking obscenely loud in the silence, his cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, away from the injured portion, the smoke dissipating up into the cool night air.

He was only just now starting to come down from everything that had happened earlier in the day, and part of him wished she'd said yes to going home with him tonight, because…well, because he really wanted her with him tonight. He wasn't in the mood to share her with anyone, though realistically he'd known her agreeing was highly doubtful. But he'd asked anyway, hoping maybe…. Well, it wouldn't have been the first time he'd struck out, as Okita liked to put it. That baseball-loving freak.

As gently as she'd let him down, the rejection had still stung, even with the promise of "soon." But he knew that was just his pride aching—it had taken a great deal for him to ask her. He thought she might know that, and had tried to soften her no. It sounded likely, at any rate.

But he was an adult, and he was patient. So he'd hold on to "soon" and wait a little while longer.

She was on the swing for an hour before she stopped and hopped off and walked over to where he was sitting and joined him.

"It's cold," she said.

"Come here," he said, putting an arm around her and dragging her close. She laid her head against his chest and he rested his chin in her hair.

"Mama used to take us to this playground," she said. "Me and Sada. And then when Morinusuke was born, all three of us. I haven't been here in a long time."

"Feeling nostalgic?" he murmured.

She shrugged. "Maybe. Mostly I just felt like swinging for a little while."

They sat in silence for a long time, and then Tokio stirred and he lifted his head and looked down at her. She tipped her head back and looked up at him.

"When you asked me to go home with you tonight, you were asking me to sleep with you, weren't you?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Was I too subtle?" he asked dryly, and she smiled faintly.

"Yeah—like a crutch," she teased, and he laughed.

She watched him, smiling a little, before her face became serious again.

"You're taking it very well," she commented.

"I waited eight years," he replied, shrugging one shoulder. "I figure it can't kill me to wait a few days more."

She smiled.

"That's very grown up of you."

"I do try, on occasion," he lightly returned, and she reached up and rubbed the side of his face, smile widening and shaking her head.

"You're really a huge jerk," she informed him. "You know that, right?"

"You tell me enough that I should by now," he said with a dry look in her direction and she laughed and leaned up and kissed his cheek.

He blinked.

"The hell was that?" he asked in vague confusion.

"Your lip's busted," she reminded him.

"And?"

"It hurts you."

"So does the fact that people like the Hirumas are allowed to live and procreate. I'll live."

"Hajime—" she began, frowning.

"Oh shut up, you talk too much," Saitou growled, leaning down and kissing her.

A minute later, he hissed and had to pull away.

"I told you," Tokio muttered, and he sent her a flat look. "Well I did."

He rolled his eyes, and they sat in silence for a moment before Tokio tugged on the wrist of the arm draped over her shoulders.

"I should get home," she murmured.

"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "Come on."

They rose and she dusted her fanny off while he watched.

"Oi, Tokio," he said.

"Hm?" She looked up at him.

"Sure you don't wanna do something dirty under the jungle gym?" he asked with a smirk.

"You're depraved," she said with a sigh.

"_Deprived_," he corrected. "The correct word is _deprived_. But you said you'd take care of that soon—"

"You know, the more you talk, the more you convince me that I'm completely justified in calling you a pervert and a letch," Tokio interrupted, grabbing hold of his hand.

"Well it's your fault then, because I was never a pervert and a letch until I met you," he replied, tugging her closer and tucking her into his side. "You created a monster."

She rolled her eyes.

"Ahou," she muttered, and he rubbed a hand up and down her arm, smiling faintly. "Take me home, you depraved, deprived lunatic."

"All right, all right."

They began walking towards the car, Tokio leaning her head against him.

"Tokio."

"Yeah?"

"Are you _absolutely sure_ you don't wanna do something dirty under the jungle gym…?"

Tokio sighed:

"You are _such a freaking letch_."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 25: Making It Official…like:_

His eyes narrowed and she smiled faintly.

"Like 'em?" she asked, hooking her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans.

"I think I found a new fetish," he said.

---

"So…what does this mean?"

"It means you aren't going home tonight, Chiisai."

"Hajime, I'm serious!"

"Who said I wasn't?"

---

She blinked.

"Married." she repeated after a moment.

"Yes." he affirmed with a nod.

"To a woman."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Well as far as I know, yeah."

---

"Have you been drinking?" she demanded.

"No!" he snapped. "What the hell, woman!"

"Touch your nose."

"I'm not drunk damn it!"


	25. Making It Official like

**SANTA HACK BRINGS YOU FOUR CHAPTERS THIS WEEK. WHO LOVES YA BABY?**

So I meant to post 2 chapters last week, and 2 chapters this week. But I forgot it was finals week. So now you get four chapters at once as an unintentional and sort of late Christmas present. Which ain't a bad trade-off. Right?

**Note:** At long last, Saitou's past with the department comes out! And as such, I must warn you, things get a little heavy-duty.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

taichou: can be translated as "captain" (_Peace Maker_, _Bleach_, etc.) or "unit commander", though within the contexts of this story, "unit commander" is the one I have in mind when "taichou" comes up.

fukuchou: anyone who's seen _Peace Maker_ will know this one—"vice-commander".

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Twenty-Five: Making It Official…like**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Soon" ended up being a whole week and a half later.

Not that Saitou was about to complain (overly): it could have been a lot longer.

Like, say, another eight years.

It took so damn long because there was so much freaking paperwork to get sorted out with this whole mess. Plus, Saitou had sort of kind of almost beaten Wu to death, which was sort of kind of a huge problem. The only reason he didn't get into more trouble was because Okita, Kenshin and Aoshi swore up and down that Saitou had not used "unnecessary force and/or excessive brutality in subduing and detaining the suspect," and the statements taken from one Yukishiro Enishi from his hospital bed, and from one Takagi Tokio in the police station, backed up the officers. Hijikata's hands were tied unless Wu's attorney really wanted to push the issue. At the moment, he wasn't inclined, and as Wu was in the hospital and looped up on medication to make him forget that Saitou's fists had smashed his face in, he wasn't too inclined either.

As it was, though, Saitou was ordered to do some time with an anger management counselor, news which made Okita laugh so hard he fell out of his chair and onto the floor, clutching his stomach and tears rolling down his cheeks.

So once that mess had been sorted out, the officers had had to deal with the complaints filed by the five officers Kamatari and Enishi had gotten into a brawl with (and, in Saitou's opinion, had totally had their asses handed to them by the twosome; Kamatari had gotten badly beaten, but they never would have been able to arrest the effeminate man if he hadn't _let_ them), and the reporter Saitou had picked up and then thrown. The news people were real pissed off with him because he had ordered them to move. Here, though, Saitou got some help from the paramedics: they had filed their own complaints against the news people, saying that because they were blocking the way, they'd interfered with the ambulances getting to the scene in a timely manner.

Just as Tokio had said (yelled, but details aren't important), Saitou got a stinging dressing-down from Hijikata for the security team's failure to follow procedure, a blow to his pride more than anything else, but one that he took with relative good grace, because he'd been expecting it even before Tokio had brought it up.

He barely saw her at all in that time, unless it was at the luncheonette, and she was busy herself; the officers had done quite a lot of damage in the storage room, and she was trying to get that cleaned up and find replacements. She was also at the hospital every night, staying first with Kamatari until he was discharged four days after being admitted, and then staying with Enishi so Tomoe wouldn't have to choose between staying with her brother or staying with her husband. So he wouldn't have been able to see her anyway.

But once things calmed down, he decided "soon" ought to be clarified, and he waited for Tokio to finish her lunch and pay, then walked out with her, and once they were away from Shiori's watchful eyes and frighteningly good (when it suited her) ear, immediately asked,

"When is 'soon'?"

She colored slightly and cleared her throat and sent him a reproachful look.

"Hajime," she murmured, voice disapproving.

"_Deprived_," he reminded her, and she rolled her eyes.

"Let me see," she said finally, sighing. "Someone needs to stay with Enishi so Tomoe-san doesn't freak out."

"When will you know?" he asked.

"Tonight," she replied, and he frowned.

"Damn it," he muttered.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Should I be flattered or worried?"

"Whichever you like," was the irritable reply, and she shook her head, smiling, and said,

"I'll call you around six and let you know, okay? It's not going to be tonight, though, I can tell you that much—too short notice."

"When the hell does that bastard get out of the hospital?" Saitou demanded, deciding it was all Enishi's fault that "soon" wouldn't be tonight.

The little turd was messing with him, damn it.

"When the doctors are ready to discharge him," she patiently returned. "Now be a good little Wolf, all right? Or you may have to wait for 'soon' for quite some time."

He sent her a deeply wounded look.

"Now that's just not fair," he said, and she laughed and leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"Life isn't fair," Tokio cheerfully informed him. "I have to get back. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

He grunted and squeezed her wrist in parting, and then watched her until he couldn't see her anymore before turning and heading back for the station with his soba in tow.

As promised, Tokio called at six o'clock. He was home, sitting on the couch and pretending to pay attention to the news.

"Well?" he asked when he answered the phone, not bothering to check to make sure it was her.

"Kamatari-chan agreed to sit with Enishi tomorrow night," she said, sounding more than a little amused, and Saitou took a moment to silently celebrate this piece of very good news.

"Come over tomorrow night around this time," he ordered.

She chuckled.

"Want to get an early start?" she asked dryly.

He smirked.

"Something like that," he said, voice innocent, and she snorted and he could almost picture her rolling her eyes.

"Good-bye Pervert," she said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Six o'clock," he reminded her before they hung up.

And then, he threw the phone onto the couch next to him and stretched his arms up above his head and then folded them behind his head and smirked in smug satisfaction.

It was about damn time.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

As agreed, Tokio left the museum at five forty-five so that she could be at Saitou's by six.

Because she hadn't had to meet anyone today or otherwise put up the front of the professional woman, she'd worn jeans and a cashmere turtleneck. Kamatari, who was back at work, gave her a strange look but didn't say anything. She got several strange looks from several people, actually, but she didn't pay them any mind. It was enough that Sae was back, and she was going to be getting laid tonight.

Ah, Sae. At the thought of her secretary, Tokio smiled. Tokio had never quite fully appreciated how very much she depended on the other woman until she'd found herself without her. And she'd never fully appreciated Sae's dedication, both to the museum and to Tokio, until Tokio had arrived at work the day after Wu's arrest and found Sae seated at her desk outside Tokio's office, a cheery smile on her face and a chipper,

"Good morning Tokio-san,"

to greet her boss with.

Tokio had hugged the life out of her.

"My Sae's back!" she wailed, crying and not feeling the least bit embarrassed about it.

"It's nice to see you again, too, Tokio-san," Sae said, patting her boss' back and producing a few tissues, and Tokio laughed at her secretary's efficiency.

She'd cried a little more when she'd found a cup of steaming tea and a muffin waiting for her on her desk along with her mail and a stack of papers that needed her signature.

Misao had been a fine fill-in, but there was nothing like having Sae back, Tokio decided as she blew her nose and sighed and got down to work.

Having Sae back put Tokio very much at ease, and Kamatari mentioned it the day he came back.

Tokio had smiled.

"Sae's a godsend," was all she'd said, and Kamatari smiled faintly, face still tender.

"That she is," he agreed, "to put up with your mood swings. And speaking of long-suffering individuals, how's your Inspector?"

"Fine. Frustrated with all the paperwork _we_ gave him," she added with a meaningful look in his direction.

"I know a cure for that," Kamatari said with a letchy grin. "I bet he _loves_ it too."

"La la la la la la, I can't hear you," Tokio said in a sing-song voice, fingers in her ears.

Slowly, things were getting back to normal.

Relatively speaking, of course.

She was actually glad she was going to see Saitou tonight. Aside from the fact that she was getting laid tonight, she'd missed spending time with him; talking to him over the phone just wasn't the same, especially since he wasn't much for conversation. She had very quickly learned that Saitou didn't do small talk very well because he really didn't care for it, so he'd never bothered to actually do it. Being an obnoxious ass, on the other hand, seemed to be a natural talent.

She made it to his building with time to spare, so she took the elevator up and arrived right outside his door at six and rapped on it with her (this time gloved) knuckles. He called that he'd be there in a minute, and she heard some shuffling and other, odder noises that were harder to place before he opened the door…and stared.

Tokio smiled mischievously. She'd purposely worn a much shorter coat than usual so he'd be able to see the jeans a little more clearly, and it appeared he was duly impressed, if his expression was anything to go by. She did a little twirl and didn't miss the soft, almost strangled noise he made in the back of his throat, and it just made her grin widen.

There was a reason why she, Sada and Kamatari had dubbed these jeans the "Fabulous Butt Jeans," and he'd just seen it.

"Can you breathe in those?" he asked finally, and she managed to resist the urge to laugh.

"Yes," she replied, all seriousness.

His eyes narrowed and she smiled faintly.

"Like 'em?" she asked, hooking her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans.

"I think I found a new fetish," he said, and this time she laughed.

"Letcher," she teased in a sing-song voice and he grabbed her by a lapel and yanked her forward and kissed her.

"Those are some very tight jeans, Chiisai," he said.

"Yup," she agreed.

"How can you move?" He sounded intrigued. And baffled. Very very baffled.

She shrugged, leaned up and kissed him.

"Just can," she replied, and he looked thoughtful.

"Hm. Guess we're gonna find out later what else you can do," he said finally, and she rolled her eyes and poked his stomach.

"You're a pig," she informed him.

"Thank you," he immediately said. "Did you eat yet?"

"Uh-uh," she said shaking her head.

"All right, then let's go," he said, reaching back and grabbing his jacket.

"Where are we going?" Tokio asked curiously from under his arm while he shut and locked the door.

"Some place a couple wards over," he said, maneuvering her toward the elevator.

"Can I have a hint?"

"Mmm…no."

"Mean." she grumbled under her breath, glaring at him.

It had snowed again, a good, liberal fall, and Tokio was in higher spirits because of it. Saitou still couldn't understand the appeal of what was essentially glorified rain, but her good mood was infectious, and he found himself smiling at the way she excitedly told him how no two snowflakes were alike and that her uncle in Aizuwakumatsu had shown her so last winter when the family had visited him for the New Year and Saitou really ought to take the time to see for himself because it was really neat and so forth and so on.

It also added to his good mood that Tokio wasn't saying anything about the hand he'd slipped into one of the back pockets of her jeans.

They took the train to Chou Ward, and ate at a Thai restaurant in Ginza that Kamatari had mentioned (read: explicitly stated) that Tokio was fond of, much to her surprise and obvious delight. As for himself, Saitou didn't really care one way or the other; he barely had any taste buds left after years of his mother's cooking. Which was not to say that it had been bad, because it hadn't, but Saitou Masu had raised her children up on chili pepper "enhanced" dishes and Saitou was pretty sure he'd killed or burned off the majority of his taste buds before the age of ten. This had come in very handy when he'd been with the department, as it had ensured that he was capable of eating pretty much anything without complaint so long as it wasn't rancid. He had complained occasionally, just for the hell of it and to piss off Okita (especially when he hauled Saitou off to some restaurant specializing in American fare, and particularly when Okita dragged him off to the Hard Rock Café in Minato Ward, down around Yokohama way), but the truth was that at this point in his life, he tasted very little of what he ate anymore, which was partly why he could eat as much soba as he did and not get sick of the stuff.

That and it had been his favorite food since primary school, much to the bafflement of his family, who all loved food so hot they started sweating profusely after taking their first whiff of their food.

"Do you like Thai?" Tokio asked as they sat down.

Saitou shrugged, and she raised an eyebrow.

"What sort of answer is that?" she asked.

He sent her a decidedly evil smirk:

"An acknowledgment of your having said something," he replied, and Tokio rolled her eyes; he was _still_ hung up on that eight-year-old argument?

"Ha ha ha," she dryly returned, and his smirk widened. "Seriously though, do you?"

"It's all right," he said. "I don't hate it, anyway."

She raised an eyebrow in obvious surprise.

"You may be the first person I've ever met who has no real opinion on Thai food." she said, and he grinned.

"And why is that?"

"Because people either really like it and or can't even hear the words."

"You fall into the first category, I gather," he said idly rubbing his jaw.

She nodded, smiling a little. "My brother hates it. First time he had Thai food he took one bite and refused to eat anything but bread the rest of the night. Sada doesn't like it either, she says it's too hot."

"You'd love my mother's cooking then," Saitou drawled. "She thinks chili peppers're a food group."

"Not a fan of hot food?"

"I really don't care one way or the other," he said with a shrug. "I haven't got enough taste buds left to."

Saitou was not easily impressed but the way Tokio could pack away all that hot food without even a faint sheen of perspiration breaking out on her forehead was really rather remarkable.

"You must be immune to it," he decided thoughtfully.

"Maybe," she agreed, grinning. "I like eating raw jalapeños."

He winced, and she laughed.

"Good gods," he muttered. "You'd _definitely_ love my mother's cooking."

He paid for dinner and they left and strolled around, eventually ending up in front of the candy store Tokio liked. He felt a certain amount of dread, as he thought she might want him to buy her something and he didn't have enough money on him for that, but she was content to just window shop.

"You are without a doubt the oddest woman I have ever met," he commented when they finally left the window and continued on down the street, she tucked under his arm and his hand tucked into one of her back pockets again.

"Oh? And how exactly do you figure that?" she asked archly.

"Hot peppers at one end of the spectrum, candy at the other," he replied.

"So what?"

"It's funny."

"Oh yeah, and _I'm_ odd," she said. "Who eats soba everyday for lunch, _hmm_?"

"I never said I wasn't odd," he said mildly.

"Are you familiar with the saying 'The pot calling the kettle black', Hajime?"

"Oi, I said I never said I wasn't odd," he said a little more insistently. "How about you try listening to me when I talk to you?"

She reached up and poked him in the stomach.

"Chill out," she ordered. "I'm just messin' with you."

"A favorite pastime of yours," he said dryly, and she laughed.

"And vice versa for _you_," she drawled, and he goosed her with the hand in her back pocket, making her yelp and jump, startled, which made him laugh.

"So how'd you get into those jeans?" he asked as they made their way back to the train station after wandering around Ginza for an hour.

"Very very carefully," she replied.

"I bet—they look painted on."

"Sada and Kamatari got them for me for my birthday. We call them the 'Fabulous Butt Jeans'," she added, and he started laughing.

"And so they are," he said with a grin, giving her rear a very affectionate pat.

"I take it you approve," she said with a smile.

"Very much so," he assured, and she smiled and rolled her eyes. "But, I'd appreciate it if you wore a longer coat next time, so people aren't staring at your ass when you walk by."

And by "people", of course, Tokio knew he specifically meant "men".

"You're such a baby," she chided.

"This is _my_ ass," he informed her, patting said body part, "just like those legs are my legs."

"Oh are they now?" She quirked an eyebrow. "Since when?"

"Since I said so," he replied, and she laughed.

"What kind of an answer is that, you jerk?"

"My answer."

She shook her head.

"Weirdo," she muttered affectionately. "I wore a short coat for your benefit, just so you know."

"And I appreciate your thoughtfulness on the matter," he assured her, "but taking a longer coat off long enough to show me would have been just as good."

"Neurotic," she said in a sing-song voice.

"Quiet you," he growled, pinching her again.

She poked his stomach again, which led to a very short and oh-so-mature pinching-and-poking fight that lasted until Tokio complained that he was going to bruise her right cheek if he kept that up.

They were back at his apartment by nine thirty, and Tokio immediately threw herself down on his bed and sighed.

"That was a lot more walking than I was planning on," she said, rolling over onto her stomach and anchoring her chin on her stacked arms.

He stood in the doorway, one shoulder leaning against the doorjamb, and shrugged the other shoulder, thumbs hooked on the belt loops of his jeans.

"No one told you to wear those high heeled boots," he pointed out. He grinned. "Though I sort of wish you'd been wearing the hooker boots."

Tokio snorted.

"So how many fetishes is that again?" she asked.

"Three, and they're all your fault, I might add," he informed her. "You've been a corrupting influence since the day I met you."

Tokio laughed.

"Oh yes, because you were _so_ innocent before you met me," she teased.

He sent her a half-smirk.

"That's right," he said. "Pure as the driven snow."

"If you're going to lie, you should try a little harder, you know," she drawled, pushing herself up to sit cross-legged on the bed. She reached up and started taking off her earrings. "It's sort of insulting if you half-ass it."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said, eyes following her hand as she deposited her earrings on the bedside table closest to her and then removed her watch; it joined the earrings.

"Want some coffee?" he asked, and she raised an eyebrow. He raised one of his in response. "What?"

"Are you stalling or something?" she asked.

He blinked. "'Stalling'?"

"Yeah."

"Stalling what?"

She sent him an incredulous look.

"I didn't take off my earrings and watch because they were suddenly bothering me, Hajime," she said, and her cheeks pinked. "They'd have gotten caught on my shirt."

"Turtleneck," he automatically corrected, and she sighed in exasperation, the blush darkening a little more.

"Same difference," she said.

"I didn't think you'd be…" He frowned, searching for the appropriate word. "…receptive, to—"

"You aren't the only one who's been deprived," she muttered, face flaming now and arms crossed over her chest, and it took supreme effort on his part not to laugh, as he was fairly certain she would not appreciate the humor of the situation in quite the same way he did.

If she appreciated it at all to begin with, which he had his doubts about.

"Chiisai," he said, voice teasing, and her glare deepened. "What am I supposed to think, as skittish as you get whenever I—" What she'd said suddenly clicked, and his eyes narrowed. "What do you mean I'm not the _only one_ who's been deprived?" he asked, voice low and gruff.

She raised an eyebrow.

"I wasn't aware that there was more than one way to take that within the context you've been using it," she replied dryly.

"That's not an answer," he growled.

They glared at each other for a very long time, and then Tokio let out an irritated huff, reached over and snatched her earrings and watch off the bedside table and hopped off the bed.

"Fine, forget it, I'm going home," she muttered.

And she would have too…if he hadn't tackled her.

One minute she was walking toward the doorway, intending to shove past him and go home. The next minute, he had pinned her to the mattress, holding down her wrists and pinning her legs in such a way as to make it, if not impossible to kick him in the groin, then at the least very difficult for her to.

"Hajime!" she yelped.

"The hell you're leaving!" he snapped. "Every time we get into an argument, you decide to end it by leaving! Well we're gonna finish one for a change, damn it! Now what the _hell_ did that mean?!?"

She glared up at him.

"Get off me!"

"Answer the question!"

"Then let me breathe you idiot!"

That made him pause, and after a moment he let her up, and she jerked her wrists out of his grasp and kicked her legs out from under his, and was genuinely sorry she didn't clip him.

"Well?" he demanded, glowering at her.

"You already know what it means, or you wouldn't be acting like such a stupid ass," she snapped.

"You said you'd never had sex before," he accused.

She sent him a chilling look.

"Really? I said that did I? I just offered up that information, just like that? How odd that I don't have even the _faintest memory_ of that conversation, don't you think? Because I happen to think that if we had had that conversation, _I'd remember having gotten into this fight already_!"

Saitou sent her a baleful look that she returned for several moments in silence, and then he said,

"Fine, you never said that."

"No, really," she spat sarcastically. "Whatever gave that away."

"But what was with the fucking virgin act? Every time I said anything remotely sexual you'd get all tense and change the subject!"

"Did it never occur to you that maybe it was inappropriate?"

"When we were _alone_?"

"Just because my mind wasn't in the gutter with yours doesn't automatically mean I'd never had sex before idiot! The two don't go hand-in-hand!" She snorted. "I can't believe you're being such a baby about this," she muttered.

He bristled and snapped,

"Well what the hell else was I supposed to assume damn it?!?"

"You weren't supposed to assume anything!"

"And if I'd asked you would have told me?"

"No!"

"Then?"

"…Oh shut up! Why are we even arguing about this?!?"

"Because!" he snapped.

"Oh great answer," she said, voice heavy with sarcasm. She made a low sound of disgust. "Ahou."

He glared at her, then faced forward and tried to burn a hole in his carpet with his eyes. When it became obvious that that wasn't going to work, he looked back over at her. She was still supremely pissed, and she was watching him with an expression that left little doubt as to who she held solely responsible for that. After glaring at each other for several moments, he reached over, grabbed her watch and earrings from her hand and basically tossed them on the bedside table, then went back to glaring at the carpet.

"I wasn't expecting you to have any experience," he growled finally.

"The idea of which pleased you to no end because you're vain like that," she said in a dry, sardonic voice that he recognized as the one he used when he was in the mood to act like a dick—she could be a damn good mimic, unfortunately for him.

That and the fact that she was absolutely right did not make him any happier with the situation, which was completely ridiculous as far as he was concerned; in less than five seconds, he had gone from being minutes away from finally getting laid to getting into a fight with her.

For any other person, this would have been unusual.

For him, it was just another day.

_In fucking hell_.

"Fine, yes, the idea of being your first appealed to me because I'm vain like that," he snapped. "Sorry for having a fucking ego."

It was quiet for a long time, and then he felt the bed move and she draped herself over his shoulders.

"Stupid man," she muttered. "Just so you know—"

"I don't want to know," he muttered, and she reached down and grabbed his right nipple and twisted.

It had been a very long time since someone had been able to do that—probably the last time had been his first year of middle school. After he threw Okita into the wall, no one else had dared to try it, and Okita hadn't repeated it because cracked ribs hurt.

He let out a very loud, very sharp yelp of pain and grabbed her wrist.

"Shit Tokio!" he snapped.

"Shut up," she ordered, pressing the palm of her hand over the spot she'd abused and kissing his cheek. "I've only been with one guy, and I didn't really enjoy myself for the whole month we slept together. Didn't really impress me."

He paused, intrigued with this information.

"Is that right?" he asked finally, and Tokio rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the shirt collar.

"Hajime, would you take off your clothes already?" she asked, exasperated, as she shoved him back onto the bed.

Oh this was still going to happen?

…Sweet.

"Yes ma'am," he drawled, scooping her up and flipping her over to the side so he could do as she'd ordered before she changed her mind.

A man had to be quick with this one, he was learning.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

A chill breeze awakened her.

Tokio slowly opened one eye and looked around blearily, then yawned and huddled down deep into the warm mattress and sheets that smelled like Saitou's cologne.

…Saitou's cologne?

She opened her eye again and blinked until everything came into focus, and she slowly smiled when she realized she was at Saitou's apartment, in his bed…naked.

So that really hadn't been an incredibly realistic dream. Good. Because she would have been really pissed off if it had been, especially after all the trouble she'd gone to to get ready for tonight.

The last thing she remembered was curling up against his side and closing her eyes while he stroked her hair in a lazy sort of absentminded way that had been incredibly relaxing. Not that she actually needed to be relaxed at that point, because in his quest to obliterate from her mind the memory of having ever been with anyone else, he'd more than assured that (and the obliterating-the-memory-of-having-ever-been-with-anyone-else too, incidentally).

Apparently, really great sex made her very sleepy.

She lifted her head and looked around for him and frowned when she realized she was alone in the bed. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and gave the room a more careful perusal, and that was when she noticed the sliding glass door was open—that's where the cold air was coming from. She gathered the sheets around herself and hopped off the bed and walked over to the doors, and found him seated in the chair, wearing his jeans, and smoking.

She couldn't help but grin.

"Smoking after?" she drawled, clutching the sheets tighter around herself against the chill air. "How cliché."

He looked around, saw her and smirked around his cigarette.

"Yeah? So is knocking out right after." He took his cigarette out of his mouth, crushed it out in the ashtray and rose.

She stuck her tongue out at him, and his smirk widened.

"By the way," he said sweetly, "you drool in your sleep."

Tokio was promptly horrified.

"I _what_?" she asked, aghast, and he laughed. "Are you serious? Hajime!"

"I'm kidding," he said, hands sliding into his pockets.

She sent him a wary look. "Honest," he insisted mildly. "The look on your face was priceless, by the way."

She rolled her eyes and turned around to go back inside.

"Jerk," she muttered as she padded to the bed and plopped down on it.

He strolled in after her, and slid the door shut, watching her with a grin on his face that she didn't recognize, a fact which made her immediately wary:

"What?"

He shook his head.

"Nothing," he said with a shrug. "I like the hair—got that 'I-just-got-nailed' look."

"_Well_," she began with a mischievous smile, and he chuckled.

She marveled at the fact that she felt entirely at ease. She'd been very worried that she'd be horribly embarrassed and unable to look him in the eye afterwards, that she'd feel awkward with him, but all she really wanted to do now was jump him. Maybe it was the jeans—man always wore the most flattering jeans….

She crooked her finger at him, and he raised an elegant eyebrow, expression amused, but came over anyway, and she hooked her finger into the waist of his jeans and tugged.

"Jeans—lose 'em."

"Ready for Round Two, I see," he said.

"I had a cat nap," she said, and he laughed.

"You're welcome," he said with a mock bow, and she smiled and shook her head and tugged a little more insistently.

"Jeans," she reminded him.

"And women say we have one-track minds," he remarked, but he didn't seem particularly bothered by that, since he immediately did her bidding.

The second time went better than the first, now that they were more familiar with what the other liked. It also helped that some of the frantic edge had been taken care of the first time.

When he tucked her into his side, and lazily ran a hand up and down her back, Tokio decided she _really_ liked sex with Saitou.

"I'm sleepy," she murmured.

"I know," he said, and she heard the smirk in his voice and rolled her eyes.

"Hajime?"

"Mm?"

"You're a jerk."

"That's not what you were saying five minutes ago," he smugly reminded her, and she blushed and tried to whack him.

Instead, he grabbed her wrist, kissed her palm and held the hand down on his chest. She sighed and conceded defeat, then let her head drop back so she could look up at him.

"Hajime?"

He grunted, opened one eye and looked down at her, looking so sleepy and content that she couldn't help but grin; he looked cute, which was really such an odd thing to think about him.

"So…what does this mean?" She gestured with her nose to the two of them being in bed.

"It means you aren't going home tonight, Chiisai."

"Hajime, I'm serious!"

"Who said I wasn't?"

Tokio sighed, exasperated.

"No dummy," she said. "I mean…what are…_we_…now?"

This question seemed to puzzle him, if the furrowing of his brow was any indication.

"Tired?" he tried, and Tokio sent him a flat look. "What?"

"I mean are you…are we…_together_, now?"

"We weren't before?"

"Are you being stupid on purpose or what?" she snapped, embarrassed that he was making her explain herself because she felt a little dumb to be asking.

"Oi, don't start gettin' all upset," he ordered, frowning. "I can't help it if you aren't making sense."

"Oh never mind," she grumbled, tucking her head under his chin.

It was very quiet for a long time, and though she wasn't looking at him she knew the exact moment when he realized what she was talking about:

"Oh," he said. Another pause. "Tokio. Oi, wake up."

"I'm awake," she muttered against his skin.

"Uh…that…what you were saying before?"

"What about it?" She moved her head so she could look up at him.

He was a little more awake now, but not by a whole lot. She sort of felt like she ought to just let him go to sleep, since that was obviously what he wanted, but she was also a little annoyed that it had taken him so long to figure out what she was talking about.

"You asked because…?"

"I wanted to know," she said.

He blinked.

"You didn't know?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"You did?" she returned, raising an incredulous eyebrow.

"I thought it was obvious," he admitted. He watched her curiously. "You really didn't know?"

She shook her head, and he frowned.

"We gotta work on communicating," he decided.

She poked his side.

"Hajime."

He met her gaze. "Hm?"

"Are we?"

"Well yes woman," he said, rolling his eyes.

She poked him again in retaliation, and he reached down and pinched her rear end and laughed when she let out a startled squeal.

"If I bruise you're in trouble," she warned him, pouting.

He grinned and leaned down and kissed her.

"I'll beat the hell out of myself if you bruise," he assured her, gently rubbing the spot he'd abused.

"Damn right," she grumbled, she snuggling against him and settling her head down on his chest.

She was just starting to drift off when he quietly cleared his throat and hesitantly asked,

"Tokio? You awake still?"

"Barely," she murmured, rubbing her cheek against him. "Why?"

"Could you…don't fall asleep yet," he said, and Tokio frowned at the serious note in his voice. "I want to…tell you something. Sort of important."

She stirred and went to lift her head up to look at him, but the hand that had been on her back was suddenly on her head, keeping her from lifting it.

"Hajime?" she asked, surprised.

That was when she noticed his heartbeat had stepped up the pace a little, and that was when she really began to worry.

Saitou swallowed quietly, mouth a little dry, and set his narrow gaze on the bureau against the opposite wall. He had actually planned to do this later, but her question had brought up an interesting point—if they were now an official item as he'd told her they were, it was time to air some of his dirty laundry. And while now was far from the ideal time, the notion that he should do it now wouldn't leave him.

"You know I used to work for the government," he began quietly, and she froze against him.

"Yes," she whispered when he didn't immediately continue.

"I was eighteen when I became a government operative," he said, his eyes narrowing a little more. "Souji and I were. Senpai and Harada were a year older than us. We all went to the same high school together, and Senpai and Harada left first, naturally, since they were older. It was the summer of '94, and all four of us were broke. We used to go paint balling at some little piece of shit outdoor range; Souji'd made friends with the guy who owned the place and he let us use the range half price. One day, after we'd finished and the guy was fixing up Souji's finger—I broke his knuckle, purely by accident, of course—we got to bitching about how broke we all were, and he mentioned the MPD was looking for people, and the pay wasn't bad.

"So we all four of us joined up, and so did Heisuke, Senpai and Harada's friend. For the first week, they put us through our paces, nothing weird, nothing out of place. Real normal stuff. Apparently, the five us impressed the right people, because at the end of that week they called the five of us into the chief's office and told us we were being sent to a different department. We were moved into a completely different building, isolated from the MPD, with fifteen other guys, including Himura. No one knew what was going on. Later that evening, once everyone was more or less settled in, we were all called down to the mess hall, and we met Taichou and the two fukuchou, and they told us what we were doing here: we'd been recruited to participate in a little experiment funded by the Prime Minister. We were going to be completely independent of the government, the MPD, the military, everything. Our primary objective was to ensure the smooth running of the government through any means possible.

"All of us had special…talents, I guess you could say. Senpai was an explosives genius. He could make a bomb out of pretty much anything, and I watched him do it at least a hundred times when we were in high school. When he'd blow crap up, he'd do it in a deserted parking lot or something like that, test out the new bomb, if you will. Harada was a weapons expert—he was always doing shit to his paint ball gun, tweaking it and adjusting it and improving its range and firing power. Heisuke was a combat specialist. You'd never think it from looking at him, but he was like Senpai—really nice, normal-looking guy who turned into a fucking monster when you pissed him off. Souji's thing was computers—he's a frickin' geek, really. When he was a kid he used to take TVs and radios apart and then put them back together again, _for fun_, and the things'd work great, sometimes better than they had before. Once computers started coming out, he managed to get his hands on one and spent years tinkering with it, learning how it worked and what it could do. Himura was a bodyguard. He could hide in the shadows and protect without being seen. Being as small and as quiet as he is, he was great at it. My thing was spying. I can blend into the background if I really want to, and no one's the wiser until it's too late—ideal talent for a spy. He can hide in plain sight and gather the info he needs and never make a ripple.

"There were other things, other guys. Some divisions had more guys than others. Senpai was his own division, so was Souji—they were so damn good it seemed dumb to try and get more guys. Whatever you needed, there was at least one guy who could do it, and a lot of the time there were several.

"A lot of…what the department did…I can't give you specifics. Technically, I'm not even supposed to be telling you as much as I have already, but…."

He heard and felt her swallow.

"Hajime," she murmured, prompting him.

"When they started training us," he began again, voice dropping even lower, "they gave us military training. They put us through boot camp for eight weeks. And the first thing they taught us how to do was how to kill quickly and efficiently should ever the need arise. The whole point of the department was to exist without technically existing. No one but the Prime Minister knew about us, about what we did, and we were expected to keep it that way."

Saitou paused again. That part had been easy, particularly since she hadn't asked any questions, which immediately told him she had some knowledge of the department, and far more than he'd expected. Then again, she'd read Senpai's books, and she knew what and who they were based on.

The next part, however, was not going to be as easy. The next part was going to be a hell of a lot harder. Because the next part was about Inoue.

"Because of this need for absolute secrecy, the department was very strict. There were certain rules you had to follow. And we all understood it was to ensure our own safety, because if anyone ever found out what we were doing, that was it. No one was going to save our asses, not Taichou, not Hijikata-fukuchou or Yamanami-fukuchou, not the Prime Minister—no one."

He felt her flinch when he said Hijikata's name, but she didn't say anything, and he decided not to interrupt himself to confirm what she was most likely thinking, because if he did he'd never get this out.

"The one rule Taichou and the fukuchou drilled into us was that we were never to say a word about the department to anyone. If we did, the punishment was death. There was no negotiation. You had the option of committing seppuku to die with some dignity, but either way, whether you killed yourself or someone did it for you, you died. And there was no way of hiding it once you'd talked. I don't know exactly how Taichou and the fukuchou found out, but they always knew.

"One day, about…about a year, I guess, after I'd joined the department, Hijikata-fukuchou called me into his office. He said he had a job for me to do, and would I take it. I said yes, because there really wasn't any other answer—his asking was just a pretense of formality. We left his office and went down to the dojo in the lower levels of the building where the department was housed, the dojo we all used to train in when we had free time. There was a man there, named Inoue Ryotaro. He was also an operative. Older man, friendly. He was related by marriage to another Inoue in our group, who Souji was friends with until the guy died during our last year in the department when his assignment went wrong at the last minute. This Inoue, Ryotaro…he was married, had been for I guess twenty years. And his wife was missing him, because one of the rules of the department was we didn't go home except for when we got furlough, a week every six months, and later when we got more guys, one week every three months. He'd just come back from his, and one way or another, Taichou and the fukuchou had found out that he'd told his wife about what he was doing, why he was gone so much.

"Hijikata-fukuchou…ordered Inoue to commit seppuku. I didn't realize what I was doing there until right then—I was going to be Inoue's second.

"Inoue refused. He…tried to explain it to Hijikata-fukuchou, said his wife was sickly and they had no children and she depended on him, said she had been frantic when he'd gotten home and he'd just tried to put her mind at rest by explaining he was working for the government now, but Hijikata-fukuchou said there was no excuse. He ordered Inoue to commit seppuku again, and warned that this was the last time he'd ask. Inoue kept trying to explain. So Hijikata-fukuchou turned to me and ordered me to execute Inoue."

Saitou forced himself to speak slower. This was one of his most unpleasant memories, and as he spoke about it it played out in his head as if it were happening right in front of him all over again. Up until that point, he'd never had to harm one of the men he worked with. It had happened, but practice or even a duel in the dojo wasn't on the same level with this—this hadn't been practice.

"If I didn't follow orders, I'd have to commit seppuku myself," he said quietly, remembering thinking that exact same thing all those years ago. "I'd already said I was willing to do whatever Hijikata-fukuchou asked of me. Saying no, backing out then, wasn't an option. So when Hijikata-fukuchou held out a katana…I took it. I took it, I drew it and I executed Inoue. I flicked the blood off the blade, slid it back into the sheath, and handed it back to Hijikata-fukuchou. And when I looked him in the eye, he said, 'Marriage is not an excuse for breaking one's silence.' Then he turned around and walked away, saying he'd send someone down for Inoue's body and to clean up the mess, and I should change clothes, because I'd gotten splattered.

"A week later, Taichou called me into his office and informed me that I was being made the department's executioner. Apparently, I'd made an impression on Hijikata-fukuchou, because Taichou said Hijikata-fukuchou had made the recommendation. So, from that day on, whenever one of our own broke their silence, as the saying went, I was the guy Taichou and the fukuchou sent them to. If they committed seppuku, I acted as second. And if they refused that option, I executed them. The only time I didn't was when Yamanami-fukuchou committed seppuku. He made a special request that Souji act as his second, and Taichou okayed it.

"When Senpai started writing his books, he called us all up and asked if it was okay with us if he used us as models. Himura was the only one who bowed out, so none of what he did appears in the books. He isn't mentioned or referenced. He doesn't exist. The rest of us said it was all right. I didn't know Senpai was going to use that incident with Inoue until he gave me the book. I didn't talk to him for three years after that, and the next time I saw him, I punched him in the face and broke his nose. Senpai caught worse from Souji when he used the Yamanami-fukuchou incident. In the end, though, we couldn't stay pissed off at him, because we'd said it was okay for him to use us and by extension what we'd done for fodder."

There was a long stretch of silence as Saitou waited for something, for anything—good or bad—from Tokio. His palms were damp and itchy and his mouth was completely dry and his heart was going so fast he thought he might be on the verge of a heart attack or something, and he had the worst feeling that he'd just ruined whatever chances he'd had with her, because what woman in her right mind was going to continue in a relationship with a man who'd once killed people for a living?

"Hajime?" she asked finally.

He couldn't quite speak, his throat had seized up upon hearing her voice, so he forced out a grunt, since it was much easier to do than force out a word.

"Why would…Hijikata-fukuchou…specifically ask for you?"

…Okay. Not quite what he'd been expecting. But that was okay. That had a very simple answer, one that wouldn't involve dangerous or classified information.

"Because I was one of the few married operatives at the time."

Tokio froze, then shot away from him and stared at him in a mix of horror and shock.

"You were WHAT?!?"

Saitou stared at her, thrown off by that response.

Perhaps, he decided belatedly, he had miscalculated.

"I was married," he repeated.

She stared at him in silence for a very long time. Like he'd grown horns. Or another head. And somewhere in the back of his mind where everything was still functioning quite well, he thought it was completely bizarre that she would have this reaction to finding out he'd been married. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was more horrified by that information than by the knowledge that he'd once killed for a living.

Oh womankind, how you confuse….

"Tokio?" he prompted.

She blinked.

"Married." she repeated after a moment.

"Yes." he affirmed with a nod.

"To a woman."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Well as far as I know, yeah."

She sent him a nasty look, and he decided humor might not be the appropriate response right just this moment.

"How long?" she demanded.

"What?"

"How long were you married for?"

"Seven years."

She went white and scooted farther away from him, sheets firmly wrapped around herself.

"You were _married_ when I met you?!?" she asked, raising her voice.

"Well, yeah," he said, and immediately decided he might have said the wrong thing when she scooted farther away from him. He noticed she was getting rather dangerously close to the edge of the mattress, and said, "Tokio, be careful—"

"You _flirted_ with me while you were _married_?"

"I'm divorced now," he said.

"_You weren't when I met you_!" she shouted, and he flinched, surprised by the sudden and drastic increase in volume. "I can't believe—you—you—_DISGUSTING_ _PIG_! HOW DARE YOU!?!"

"Oi, what the fuck," he snapped, getting angry now—where the _hell_ was this coming from?! "I got divorced six years ago!"

"And for the first two years I knew you you were married and acted like you weren't!"

"We were separated by then!"

"But not divorced!"

"I hadn't been living with her for over four years by then!"

"You were still married to her!"

He reached out and grabbed her and hauled her back, and she tried to punch him—really punch him—but he managed to evade her fist and grab her by the arms and hold them against her sides.

"If you keep backing away you're going to fall off the fucking bed nitwit!" he snapped. "Now shut the fuck up and let me explain something to you!"

She sent him a seething look, but he caught a hint of hurt and betrayal there too, and it made him relax a little.

"I married Yaso when I was eighteen. She was four years older than me, and we only lived together for a week after we got married, because right after that I joined the MPD and got sent to the department. I'd moved in with her before we got married because when I told my parents what I was planning, we got into this big argument about it and I left home. Once I joined the department I didn't see her very much, and since I wasn't a fucking idiot like Inoue, I never told her what I was doing. Which saved my ass at work, but not at home. So once they shut us down and I joined the Bunkyo Ward precinct, I attempted to salvage what was left. But she was rather firmly convinced that I was a cheating bastard and didn't want to have anything to do with me, so I finally just gave up and granted her the divorce."

"And you flirted with me to make yourself feel better?" she snapped.

"No, goddamn it I thought you were cute!" he bellowed. "By the time I met you I was starting to get the idea that I'd fucked up and it was too little too late!" He paused and drew in a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. And stop yelling at her, because once they started yelling things got bad fast. Much more composed now, he continued:

"The last year I went through the motions but I wasn't really interested anymore. By then it was more my ego than anything else that made me refuse to sign the papers. The proceedings took a year because her asshole brothers decided to interfere on her behalf, and it took her too fucking long to tell them to go to hell and let her handle things. Once she did, shit got taken care of, and I was now a divorced _loser_ at twenty-fucking-five."

She watched him in silence for several moments, then muttered,

"You never said you were married."

"You never asked," he shot back. A pause. "Look, it was a long time ago, as far as I'm conce—"

"You didn't get divorced because of me?" she asked, expression wary.

He watched her, surprised by the question, then smiled faintly.

"No," he assured. "You provided an incentive for me to hurry the hell up and get it over with, but my marriage had flatlined way before I met you."

"You're not just saying that?" she pressed.

"Nope. You can ask Souji if you like—he had a front row seat to the car crash that was my marriage to Yaso." She still didn't look convinced. "Or, if you'd like, I can give you Yaso's phone number, and she can tell you all about what a cheating, lying, worthless piece of shit I am—she was particularly fond of telling me in minute detail whenever I tried to talk to her."

"Why do you still have her phone number?" Tokio asked suspiciously.

"She likes to get trashed on our old anniversary and call me and leave abusive messages for me. I'd block her number or change mine, but I sort of feel like I owe it to her to take it."

She watched him, then said,

"You're not well."

He pursed his lips. "No, probably not," he agreed. He rubbed his thumbs against her arms. "So?"

She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, then sighed.

"Sorry," she said. "But can you blame me for thinking I was being used as an excuse to ruin a marriage?"

"No," he said. "But you should know by now that I can fuck up gloriously without anyone's help."

Tokio laughed, and some of his uneasiness left him.

It came back when she turned serious again.

"About the other stuff," she said, and he braced himself for news he wasn't going to like. "I'd like to…think about it for a little while, okay?"

Well…it wasn't instant rejection, at least. Instant acceptance would have great, but he'd known the odds of that were slim. So in light of the other option, being in limbo for a while was preferable.

"Yeah," he said, and she leaned forward and kissed him and he decided that he might still be in the running after all.

"So," she said, poking his stomach. "Can I go to sleep now?"

He rolled his eyes.

"Sure Chiisai, you can go to sleep now."

"And you're staying too, right? No cliché smoking on the balcony?"

"No—I'm in the mood for cliché sleeping," he dryly replied, and she poked him a little harder this time.

"Watch it," she said, but she was smiling a little.

They settled back in the way they'd been before (after he managed to convince her to relinquish the sheets and then helped her untangle herself from them), and he lazily stroked her hair. She was soon drowsing again, and just before she nodded off for good, she murmured,

"Don't forget to wake me up tomorrow."

"Don't worry about it," he replied, sounding half asleep. "I'll make sure you get to work on time, Chiisai."

"Mm," was her reply as she snuggled closer and rubbed her cheek against his chest. "Okay. 'Night Hajime."

"'Night."

Tokio smiled and kissed his chest, deciding that as weird as parts of tonight had been, it was still a million times better than she'd been expecting.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saitou was a little later than usual about awakening her, but in his defense, he was tired after last night. That didn't keep Tokio from whacking him with his pillow, of course, but she didn't say uncharitable things about him under her breath, so that was good.

She wasn't completely awake until she got into the shower. And while she showered, she decided to try to process some of last night's conversation.

She had been stunned that he was willing to say anything to her at all about it, after all the times he'd refused to on the grounds that that part of his life was "classified information." She'd gotten used to and had even started to accept the idea that he was never going to tell her about what she'd begun thinking of as his "lost years." So for him to suddenly decide to share that with her, for him to change his mind like that…well, it had been quite a shock, to say the least.

It had also been a surprise to hear of Hijikata's involvement (assuming she had the right Hijikata in mind, and she was pretty sure she did). She'd thought about asking him who "Taichou" had been, but she figured that if he hadn't used the man's name, he probably wasn't at liberty to say; it was telling that he'd used Hijikata's name, and the name of the other fukuchou, but had referred to "Taichou" by only his rank.

Hearing he'd been a spy had not been a surprise, because that was Fujita's job in Shinpachi's books, and she'd figured that that much had been true. She'd also been prepared for the revelation that he had indeed executed a fellow operative, because his reaction when she'd asked him a while back had said more than enough on that. But she had not been expecting to hear that he had also served as the department's executioner, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with that. It wasn't everyday, after all, that a man she'd thought rather ordinary, aside from his weird sense of humor, turned out to have at one point been something far more sinister.

But she'd taken it well, she thought. Hell, she was still taking it well. It was going to take a little while to get used to the idea, but Tokio was positive she could—particularly since he'd changed his mind and told her. That was profoundly telling of his expectations for this relationship, especially since he had never even told his wife why he'd neglected her for as long as he had.

The wife. Tokio frowned at the thought of her. That was something else that sort of bothered her. She had always been under the impression that he had been a bachelor. On the few occasions she'd seen him without his gloves during the first two years she'd known him, she'd never seen a ring on his finger, and she wondered about that. Had he just never gotten one? It was possible. He'd gotten married when he was eighteen and broke, after all, so it stood to reason he hadn't been able to afford that kind of expense. Or had he just stopped wearing it?

Pounding on the bath room door made her jump and nearly slip and fall.

"Oi, I have to pay that bill, you know," he called through the door.

"All right, I'll be out in a minute!" she called back, and though she couldn't make out exact words she heard him grumbling and assumed he was complaining about her.

As promised, she turned off the water a minute later, and when she left the bath room she was wearing one of the suits she'd begun leaving at his apartment and had towel dried and combed her hair. He had tea waiting for her at the table, and he was leaning against the counter, cup of tea in hand, and watching her with strangely alert eyes as she sat down and drank.

"What?" she asked warily, feeling nervous under that odd gaze.

"I know I said I'd let you process last night," he said quietly, setting his own cup down on the counter, "and I will, because I said I would, but I sort of want to know where we stand on that as of right now."

She watched him, lips pursed, then set her own cup down.

"How do you mean?"

"Are you going to disappear on me for weeks and then show up one day and tell me this isn't going to work?" he bluntly asked, and she raised an eyebrow.

"Has that happened before?" she asked.

"Senpai's wife moved back in with her parents for a month after he told her," he replied. "She wouldn't return his calls or see him. I'd rather not go through the same experience."

Tokio sent him a wry smile.

"Do I strike you as the sort of woman who'd run away from you if you did something I didn't like, Hajime?" she asked dryly.

"This is hardly in the same league as my ordering you around, Tokio," he said seriously, and she rolled her eyes.

"Would you lighten up, you dummy?" she ordered. "I'm still here, aren't I? I could have waited for you to fall asleep last night before I left, but I didn't. Hiding out isn't the way I do things, you know that. I just want to sit on it for a few days."

"No disappearing?" he pressed.

She rolled her eyes, stood up and walked over to him, then leaned up and kissed him.

"No," she said, poking his stomach. "Now are you going to lose the—"

"Jeans?" he dryly finished, raising one eyebrow, and she tried and failed to keep from smiling.

"I think I turned you into even more of a pervert," she said with a sigh.

"Yeah," he agreed, and she kissed him again.

"Just so you know," she said, rubbing her nose against his, "you won't be getting rid of me so easily. I intend to stick around for a lot longer."

He sent her a faint smile.

"Do you now?" he murmured.

"Yes, I thought you should know." she haughtily informed him, and his smile widened. "Besides, how often does a girl get to say she's sleeping with the _real_ James Bond?"

He laughed at that.

"James Bond, huh?" he asked, dragging her closer and kissing her forehead.

"Well, he's a spy, you were a spy," she said cheekily. "Of course, you don't wear tuxedoes when you take out the bad guys."

"And I'm not a fan of martinis," he added.

"But other than that, you're totally like James Bond," she finished.

"So that makes you the new Bond girl, doesn't it?" he said, and Tokio sent him an arch look.

"I'm the best Bond girl there is," she said, and he chuckled.

"You, my pet, are also not well," he said, giving her butt an affectionate pat. "Lucky for you, I kinda like that."

"Well, you're sick like that," she said with a shrug, and he grinned thoughtfully.

"Yeah," he said nonchalantly.

They sat down at the table and drank their tea in companionable silence for a little while before Saitou asked,

"So when am I meeting your parents?"

Tokio promptly spat her tea in his face. He sat there for a moment, eyes scrunched shut, then calmly said,

"Goin' out on a limb here, but I'm assuming that's not a very good sign."

He wiped his face while she stared at him in horror.

"_What_?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"So you didn't spit tea in my face because you heard me the first time?" he asked sardonically.

"No, I spat tea in your face because I could have sworn I just heard you ask me when you were going to meet my parents," she said. "Sorry, by the way."

"Appreciate the afterthought," he coolly replied. "And you heard me just fine."

She gaped at him. Then, her gaze became suspicious.

"You're high, aren't you?"

He sent her a flat look.

"You are, aren't you? I don't smell anything, so it wasn't something you smoked. Let me see your arms," she ordered.

"If you're trying to be funny, you're failing spectacularly," he flatly informed her.

"Arms," she demanded.

"I haven't been smoking anything, shooting anything up or snorting anything, damn it, and I'll thank you not to insinuate that I was ever again," he snapped impatiently.

She eyed him, then shrugged and seemed willing to drop it, for which he was grateful. Apparently, though, he'd been a wee bit too hasty:

"Have you been drinking?" she demanded.

"No!" he snapped. "What the hell, woman!"

"Touch your nose."

"I'm not drunk damn it!"

She had the gall to ignore him and hold up three fingers and wiggle them in his face.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked.

"If you don't stop you won't have any fingers left!" he shouted.

"Hm. Well you certainly don't _sound_ drunk," she murmured, still ignoring him. She eyed him, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. "Are you feeling okay? Maybe you're getting sick—you _were_ sitting out on the balcony smoking without a shirt on last night."

"What is so fucking weird about my asking that?!?" he demanded.

She finally looked at him, really looked at him, and her expression was a cross between incredulity and amusement.

"No man in his right mind ever wants to meet my father, Hajime," she informed him.

He bristled.

"_I'm not afraid of your father goddamn it_!"

"Shush—fine, fine, you aren't afraid of Papa," she said, frowning.

He sent her a resentful look, then barked,

"Tell your parents to expect me Wednesday night."

"Papa works Wednesday," Tokio immediately informed him.

"Saturday then."

Tokio frowned.

"You know, I'd almost swear you were serious," she remarked.

He looked like he was seconds away from strangling her.

"I am," he informed her through gritted teeth. "I'm deathly serious—emphasis on _deathly_."

It slowly began to dawn on her that he wasn't joking. Her jaw dropped.

"Hajime, I don't think this is a good idea," she began.

"Tell your parents to expect me Saturday night," he ordered. "All you need to do is tell me what time they want me there."

"No, Hajime, you don't understand—"

"I'm not afraid of your fucking father, Tokio!"

"Watch your mouth when you talk about my papa!" she shouted, eyes flashing. She took a moment to compose herself. "Hajime, Papa has this tendency of coming on a little strong—"

"If you haven't already told your parents about me I suggest you do," he said dryly, one eyebrow raised, and her mouth snapped shut, eyes wide with surprise. He nodded. "I figured as much," he muttered. "Let me guess: they're under the impression you stayed at your sister's tonight?"

The suddenly too-innocent look on her face was all the answer he needed.

"And may I ask when exactly you were planning on informing them that I existed?"

"…Well…'never' sounded really good until a couple seconds ago," she said in a small voice, looking a little nervous.

He glared at her; she sent him a winning smile.

"Tokio," he growled.

"Hajime," she whined. "This is so _weird_! _Why_ do you want to meet my parents?"

"It's what comes next," he said with such authority she knew he firmly believed it.

She watched him with a dubious look on her face.

"And then the funeral comes after that," she said.

"You're being melodramatic," he said.

"You say that because you don't know," she muttered, and he sent her an exasperated look.

"Stop that," he ordered. "Look, it can't go worse than the time I met Yaso's brothers. They hated my guts on sight."

Tokio eyed him with her patented "Yeah-uh-huh-sure" look on her face.

"And so he seals his fate by uttering his famous last words," she dryly said. He opened his mouth to protest, but she sighed and continued:

"Fine, I'll let them know. But remember—you asked for it."

"You're being ridiculous," he informed her. "It'll be fine. It's dinner, not a war."

Famous last words indeed.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Previews of Chapter 26: Meet the Parents: Shinsengumi Style:_

Tokio pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Saitou was "a nice boy", was he? Really, Tokio loved her mother to death—she could be so cute sometimes. And she couldn't wait to tell Kamatari about this, he'd laugh himself sick.

---

"Promise me you're going to behave Saturday," she immediately said, and he raised an eyebrow.

"'Behave'?" he repeated. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you aren't going to make any smart ass remarks, or generally act like a jerk. I know you can do it, too, because I've seen you do it before."

---

"Hajime, this is my father Takagi Kojuro," Tokio said, a little nervous now, and she looked over at Saitou to warn him again, this time with her eyes, to behave, but he wasn't watching her—his narrowed, unfriendly gaze was firmly latched onto her father's equally hostile one.

_Oh merciful gods, why hast thou forsaken me?!_ Tokio silently cried.

---

"You promised you'd behave!" she all but shouted.

"He started it!"

"So be the bigger man!"

"I am being the bigger man—I haven't decked him yet! And after that fucking comment about the Hirumas he deserved it!"


	26. Meet the Parents: Shinsengumi Style

**PART TWO OF A FOUR PART POST!**

Also, many thanks to **Priya-chan** for this chapter's title. : ). I appreciate the help, m'dear.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

zabuton: cushions set on the floor upon which one sits.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Twenty-Six: Meet the Parents: Shinsengumi Style_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

The announcement that Tokio was seeing someone new was met with delight from her mother, surprise from her brother, and immediate suspicion from her father.

All of which she had been expecting.

"He's a police officer Mama," Tokio said when her mother asked what it was this mystery man did for a living.

"Oh my," Katsuko replied, smiling. "Just like your father. You know, they say you're attracted to men who remind you of your father."

Tokio coughed and smiled weakly.

_Aside from the job, that's where the resemblance ends_, she thought to herself.

"Where?" Kojuro asked, face set in stony lines.

"Bunkyo Ward." she immediately answered. "He was the officer in charge of the investigation."

Kojuro frowned, his displeasure growing, if that was possible.

"Is that so?" he asked, voice coming out rougher than usual. "Fraternizing with the people involved in a case in any way is strictly prohibited, Tokioko."

Tokio pursed her lips.

"Well, Papa," she began, wondering if she would be able to lie her way out of this one without actually lying, "Hajime knew me before the break-in. We met at a luncheonette where I eat lunch everyday."

Her father's frown now appeared to be permanently etched onto his face:

"And how long ago was that?" he demanded.

"Uh…eight years?" she said, shooting her mother and brother a worried look.

"Are you asking or telling, Tokioko?"

"Kojuro," Katsuko chided, "leave the girl alone. I'm sure Tokio wasn't seeing this young man for eight years without telling us."

"'Specially since she'd have been dating two different guys at the same time for most of the eight years," Morinusuke added, and Tokio shot him a glare that told him he was _not_ helping her in the least.

"How long then?" Kojuro asked, apparently deciding to ignore his son's rather tasteless remark.

"Since…this week," Tokio lied, frowning faintly; damn, she'd wanted to keep the lying to a minimum, since her parents already thought she'd been spending all those nights at Sada's. But she knew answering truthfully would automatically ensure that Saitou started off on the wrong foot with Kojuro.

Her parents both looked taken aback by that announcement—Morinusuke's eyes looked like they were going to fly out of his head.

"Oh," Katsuko said finally, sounding as if she'd like to add more but wasn't sure what to say.

"Hajime wants to meet you all," Tokio offered, hoping that might win Saitou some brownie points with her parents—or more specifically, her father.

"Oh," Katsuko said again, but she was smiling this time, and she looked very excited. "He sounds like a nice boy."

Tokio pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Saitou was "a nice boy", was he? Really, Tokio loved her mother to death; she could be so cute sometimes. And she couldn't wait to tell Kamatari about this, he'd laugh himself sick.

"I was hoping he could come for dinner Saturday night," she said once she was sure she wouldn't laugh.

"Of course!" Katsuko immediately said. "We'd love to have him, wouldn't we Kojuro?"

Her father grunted, not at all happy with this arrangement, and not the least bit shy about showing it.

Tokio smiled at her mother, then leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"Thank you Mama," she said sincerely.

Then she turned to her father and smiled at him, then leaned over and kissed his forehead, near the hairline that had been steadily receding for the past decade.

"Thank you Papa."

Kojuro's expression immediately softened and he sent her a faint smile in return, and Tokio silently thanked the gods that manipulating her father into a better mood was so easy.

It wasn't until dinner's end that Morinusuke caught her in the entry and told her he might not be able to make dinner Saturday.

"No!" Tokio shouted immediately, then cringed and looked around to make sure her parents hadn't noticed; in the kitchen she heard the radio playing and her mother singing along, as well as the clink of plates and the sound of water running. In the living room, her father had settled down to watch his program, and if he'd heard her he didn't give any indication. She turned back to her brother, grabbed him by the collar and in a furious whisper ordered him to put on his shoes and come outside.

Once on the porch, Tokio immediately said,

"Morinusuke you have to be there Saturday night! I need a buffer!"

"I have to work the night shift," he protested. "Look, I'd like to be here, seriously, but—"

"You don't understand!" Tokio groaned, closing her eyes and grabbing fistfuls of hair. "Saturday night is going to be a disaster!"

"Oh come on," Morinusuke said, but he didn't sound sure.

"No, you're good at steering the conversation away from controversy," Tokio said. "I can't sit there with Papa and Hajime alone, Morinusuke—you know how Papa gets."

"Papa can be a little…intense," the younger Takagi acknowledged. "But you can handle him—you did fine earlier."

"Yeah well, Hajime's a gigantic baby himself," Tokio muttered crossly. "I can't cater to both of them at the same time. And if Mama's going to be in the kitchen until dinner's ready, I'm going to need help. Please?"

Morinusuke eyed her.

"Did he really want to meet Mama and Papa?" he asked finally, and Tokio sighed wearily.

"Yes," she said.

Her brother's eyebrows rose. "Really? You didn't make that up? Wow."

"He _demanded_ to meet them," Tokio informed him, and his eyes widened.

"Was he on drugs?" he asked finally.

"No."

"You guys were drinking when he asked, right?"

"Nope."

Morinusuke frowned.

"He's crazy, right?" he asked finally.

"There could be some sort of undiagnosed mental illness there," she admitted.

"Are you kidding?" Morinusuke snorted. "There's _definitely_ some kind of undiagnosed mental illness there if he _wanted_ to meet Papa." He eyed Tokio speculatively. "Does he _know_ who our father is, exactly?"

"Oh yes, I told him," Tokio assured, and Morinusuke's eyebrows climbed higher.

"They do say that fools rush in where angels fear to tread," he commented thoughtfully, and Tokio glared at him.

"You aren't helping, you know."

"Sorry Sis," he replied, sincere. "I just…wow. I mean, most guys _run away_ when they find out who your dad is, but this guy's going in the wrong direction."

"I'm pretty sure he's trying to prove to me that he isn't scared of Papa," Tokio said lightly.

"Is he?" Morinusuke asked.

"Well, he turned a little green when he found out. He denies it, of course, but he did. So now he's out to prove that he isn't afraid of Papa."

"Huh," was her brother's thoughtful reply. "Mama was right—this guy kinda sounds like Papa."

"He looks nothing like him," Tokio said. "Unless Papa is, in reality, a freakishly tall chain-smoker with scary eyes and a totally bizarre sense of humor."

Morinusuke frowned.

"And you like this guy why?" he asked, truly baffled.

Tokio sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Hajime's special," she said. "He…takes some getting used to."

Her brother sent her a pitying look.

"He's a dick, huh?"

"Not all the time," Tokio quickly said. "Just…a lot of the time."

Morinusuke sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Look, I'll try and see if I can fix it so I'm there Saturday, okay? But don't expect too much," he cautioned when Tokio smiled.

"Thank you!" she squealed, hugging him tightly, and he sighed, but smiled nonetheless and gave her a bear hug, completely lifting her up off the porch.

"You're welcome, ya midget," he said, setting her down and dropping a kiss on the crown of her head. "Now hurry up and get to the hospital before you have to try and wheedle the nurses into letting you in."

Tokio's response to that was to stick her tongue out at him before running back into the house for her overnight bag and coat and purse. Morinusuke waited outside and walked her to the train station, then once she'd disappeared and the train had come and gone, he started home again, shaking his head.

"I _so_ need to get Saturday night off," he said with a faint grin—no way for the world would he miss what promised to be the "boyfriend dinner" to end all "boyfriend dinners."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Much to Tokio's dismay, the days passed very quickly. Naturally, this did nothing to help her feel better, imminent doom approaching as swiftly as it was.

And Saitou wasn't helping either.

His only acknowledgment of Saturday night was when he asked what time he was supposed to show up. Upon receiving his answer (six), he proceeded to not say another bleeding word about it. What was more, any time she brought it up, he told her she needed to relax, and then he'd change the subject.

It frustrated her immensely that he didn't appear to grasp why she was so concerned, and she tried to address it Wednesday night when they saw each other again for dinner and movie (at the cinema this time); now that he was back on regular schedule, he only had certain nights and certain days off, so dinner wasn't always a sure thing.

She waited until they were back at his apartment to address it.

Well. She didn't get to address it _right away_, as there were more…pressing urges…that required immediate attention. But after _that_, there was nothing to distract either one of them, so she poked him in the stomach and said,

"About Saturday night."

He sighed wearily.

"Again?" he asked resignedly.

She tipped her head back and frowned up at him from the crook of his arm.

"You never let me talk about it," she said.

"Because that's all you _ever_ want to talk about," he replied, sounding vaguely annoyed.

"Well if you'd let me finish for once—"

"What the hell is there to talk about?" he demanded. "It's dinner at six on Saturday, Tokio, it's not a hell of a lot to remember."

"Those aren't the details that worry me," she protested.

He rolled his eyes.

"Tokio, what the hell," he said tiredly. "You're blowing this way out of proportion."

"No, I'm not—you're just not taking it seriously," she snapped. "Papa is very…intense, and you can be very…intense, and two intense people meeting each other for the first time can make…bad things happen."

"Your brain's still offline, huh?" he asked with a smug grin, and she poked him very very hard in retaliation. "Ow! Geez, Chiisai it was a joke."

"Be serious!" she ordered.

He sighed and sent her a resigned look.

"Fine Tokio," he said patiently. "What's bothering you?"

"Promise me you're going to behave Saturday," she immediately said, and he raised an eyebrow.

"'Behave'?" he repeated. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means you aren't going to make any smart ass remarks, or generally act like a jerk. I know you can do it, too, because I've seen you do it before."

He frowned and didn't appear to much appreciate that, but also seemed to decide not to take issue.

Right now, anyway.

"Anything else?"

"No smoking, mind your language, do _not_ pinch my butt in front of my father or say or do anything that could in any way be remotely construed as dirty," was the instant response, complete with fingers ticking off items as they were listed. "No leering, no glaring, no frowning, no expression that could in anyway be construed as an invitation to start a fight—_no fighting in any form whatsoever_—"

"Whoa whoa whoa, time out," he said, sitting up. "I can't smoke?"

"No."

He stared at her.

"Why?"

"Because Mama and Papa don't know that you smoke."

"So?"

"They don't like it."

"So why don't you care?"

"Because my uncle Toji smokes and has since forever, and I'm used to it."

"So why aren't they used to it?"

"Hajime I don't know," she snapped, exasperated. "Good gods, you're acting like I asked you to quit. It's just _one_ evening."

"Spoken like someone who's never had an addiction of any kind," he dryly replied, and she glared at him.

"No smoking," she said.

"Tokio—"

"This isn't a negotiation, Hajime. _No smoking_."

He watched her with a sour expression on his face, then slumped back down.

"Fine," he muttered. "Anything else I should be aware of?"

"Yes—Papa hates you."

There was a long pause, and then he asked,

"So does that mean I can smoke?"

She sighed in acute frustration and put her arm over her eyes.

"Why do you do this to me?" she groaned.

"Well if he already hates me what does it matter if I smoke?"

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" she accused, removing her arm from her eyes and glaring up at him.

"Tokio," he said, rolling his eyes, "lighten up. I've done this before, you know."

"Papa is special, Hajime," she said wearily. "You don't get a second chance with him. If you come off the wrong way the first time he meets you, that's it, it's over and you will _be_ that person in his mind _forever_. And I would really really like for him not to loathe and detest you."

"He's not going to loathe and detest me," he assured.

"He will if you smoke," she said dryly, rolling over onto her stomach and leaning up on her elbows to send him a pointed look and he glared at her.

"If you want me to quit we're going to have problems," he informed her and she looked at him like she was thinking very hard about gouging his eyes out.

"I don't care if you smoke you ahou, but my parents do," she said tightly. "So you aren't going to smoke Saturday night while you're there. Period, end of story, so stop pissing and moaning about it."

"This better be a short dinner," he muttered, and she sent him a flat look.

"I'll make sure to let Mama know you want to leave really quick," she sarcastically snapped.

He didn't dignify the remark with a response.

"Tokio, you need to relax," he said. "You're acting like you think this is going to end horribly wrong."

"That's because I _do_ think it's going to end horribly wrong," she muttered, anchoring her chin in the palm of her hand and watching him with something like resignation in her gaze.

"I appreciate the tremendous confide you have in me," he said dryly. He reached up and dragged her down on top of him and kissed her. "Lighten up, okay? I'm not gonna make you look bad in front of your folks."

"I want Papa to like you," she said pouting, gaze on his chin. "And it's very hard to do. Mama already thinks you're great and Morinusuke won't be a problem but nobody ever wins Papa over. Not to destroy your ego or anything, but far better men than you have tried and failed spectacularly."

"They were third rate," he said dismissively, then smirked at her. "Besides, you're sleeping with the real James Bond, remember?"

She smiled faintly in embarrassment (and colored a little at the reminder), and shook her head.

"Whatever you do, don't bring that up," she advised.

"I promise it'll be the first thing out of my mouth," he replied, and she rolled her eyes.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say you're acting like a jerk," she informed him.

"Then I will try very hard to abstain from this and other unacceptable behaviors Saturday while in the presence of your sainted father. Now," he said, lifting her hair back and nibbling on her neck, "what time are you supposed to be home?"

"Before one," she said, reaching over to the bedside table to pick up his watch and check the time, taking particular care not to interfere with his attentions. "We still have an hour and…forty-five minutes."

"Oh good I thought we had less time," he said, rolling them over so he was on top of her.

And that was the end of that conversation, and any other conversation for that matter, for the next hour.

Tokio was still feeling uneasy, though, and as Wednesday became Thursday and Thursday became Friday and Friday became Saturday it just got worse and worse until she found herself standing out in the cold Saturday evening in nothing but a skirt, a blouse, hose and heels, waiting for him to arrive and praying to the gods that he wasn't late, because while they weren't going to eat until six-thirty, "The Inquisition" started at six sharp and being late would not make a very good impression.

Thankfully, her prayers were answered, and he arrived with three minutes to spare. Tokio was elated until she realized that the smoke in the vicinity of his mouth wasn't his breath.

He strolled up to her, hands in the pockets of his coat and began to greet her, but she cut him off when she ripped the cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it into the snow on the right of the walkway leading up to her house. He watched the cigarette fly through the air, land in the snow with a faint hiss and then proceeded to stare at it for a few seconds more, expression torn between surprise and anger, before looking back over at her and saying, in a surprisingly mild voice,

"I was smoking that."

"Well you aren't anymore," she said shortly, smoothing down his jacket front.

"No shit," he replied with more than a little heat and her gaze flew to his face, eyes flashing.

"What did we talk about Wednesday night!?!"

"I wasn't finished with my cigarette!"

"You have a whole pack, I don't see why that should matter!"

He drew himself up to his full height, looking more offended than she could ever remember seeing, and she supposed she might have committed some grievous sin against his precious cigarettes, but she was wound way too tight to try and give a damn.

Before he had a chance to reply, though, the front door rattled open on its tracks and Tokio looked around and saw her father standing in the doorway. The light from within threw his front in shadow, so she couldn't see his expression, but she knew her father well enough to know that he'd been standing in the entry for some time and had heard their argument.

"Oh crap," she muttered.

"That him?" her father asked, voice cool and even.

"Yes Papa."

There was a long pause; Tokio knew Kojuro was sizing Saitou up. Then,

"Well show him in then Tokioko."

"Yes Papa," she said, bobbing her head, and she turned back to Saitou, who was still sending her a nasty look—he wasn't going to forgive her this any time soon, it appeared.

She mouthed "Behave" at him, then turned around and walked up the walkway, mounted the porch and entered the house, Saitou two steps behind her the whole time. Kojuro watched from the edge of the entry as Tokio took Saitou's coat and placed his shoes on the rack, then removed her own once she'd gestured to the slippers her mother had set out for him.

Her father didn't look happy, and Tokio inwardly cursed at herself for starting their argument and snatching the damn cigarette from his mouth in the first place. If she'd just asked him to put it out instead of freaking out….

"Papa," she said brightly, pushing the thoughts away, "this is Saitou Hajime."

Her father's gaze flickered up and down the tall man standing before him.

"Hello Saitou-san," he said finally, voice like steel.

"Hajime, this is my father Takagi Kojuro," Tokio said, a little nervous now, and she looked over at Saitou to warn him again, this time with her eyes, to behave, but he wasn't watching her—his narrowed, unfriendly gaze was firmly latched onto her father's equally hostile one.

_Oh merciful gods, why hast thou forsaken me?!_ Tokio silently cried.

"Takagi-san," Saitou said finally, voice blessedly neutral; Tokio would have wept for joy if only he weren't attempting to set her father on fire with his glare.

There was a long, awkward pause where Tokio's increasingly frantic gaze went back and forth between the two men as she wondered what to do. Finally, she coughed.

"Er…why don't we go into the living room?" she suggested cheerfully, smiling quite possibly the fakest smile she had ever yet donned.

Neither man moved for a moment, and then Kojuro slowly turned and began walking toward the living room, saying over his shoulder,

"This way."

Saitou glared after the older man for a moment before following, and Tokio waited long enough that she would be safe before throwing Saitou's coat aside and hurrying after the two.

Her father made a curt gesture to a zabuton, indicating that Saitou was to sit there. Kojuro met Tokio's gaze and with his eyes gestured to the zabuton next to him—no way would this guy sit anywhere near his daughter tonight, if he had his way. She smiled weakly and took her seat, managing not to fidget or wring her hands or otherwise alert the two men that she was going to die of nerves because of them. She doubted they would have noticed anyway, at least not until she keeled over dead—they were far too busy with glaring at each other.

It was right about now that Tokio began wondering where Morinusuke was. He'd said he'd probably be a little late, but he'd definitely be there; the earliest he'd be able to leave the precinct was six. That meant it would take him around twenty minutes to walk home, since he hadn't taken his bike today, and that meant he wouldn't be here until they were sitting at the table, eating.

And that was the equivalent of an eternity to be sitting here with these two trying to kill each other with their eyes.

Like a miracle, a gift from the gods she had believed had forsaken her, Katsuko appeared in the archway with a tray bearing tea, and Tokio sent her mother a grateful look.

"Hello," Katsuko said cheerfully, sending Tokio a wink. "Tokio, would you please take this?"

"Yes Mama," Tokio immediately said, shooting to her feet. She accepted the tray from her mother and smiled, Katsuko returned it and patted her daughter's head, then turned her gaze on their guest and beamed.

"And you must be Tokio's young man."

Tokio's cheeks flamed and her eyes widened in embarrassment, but she didn't dare look up and meet Saitou's gaze when she handed him his tea.

"Yes ma'am," Saitou said, voice absolutely polite and devoid of anything Tokio could take issue with.

Katsuko bowed low, the epitome of grace and serenity and everything Tokio was most definitely not at this moment.

"I'm Tokio's mother, Katsuko."

"Saitou Hajime."

Katsuko's smile widened.

"We're so glad to have you tonight," she said; Tokio marveled at the genuine sweetness that was her mother's personality, and wished more than anything right that moment that she had that, because it would have made being in the same room with Saitou and her father a lot less nerve-wracking.

She gave her father his tea and briefly looked up at him; he met her gaze and his face softened. He bobbed his head ever so slightly as he accepted his tea, and she smiled at him, hoping that would improve his disposition, then turned back to the tray to grab her mother's cup and realized there was only one left and not two like she'd been expecting. Tokio's head snapped up.

"You aren't staying Mama?" she blurted, eyes huge and begging, "Please Mommy, don't leave me here with them!"

"No dear, dinner's not quite done yet and I have to watch it closely," Katsuko said. "I only came out to give you all tea and meet our guest—it's very exciting to have you here, Saitou-san."

Saitou sent her faint smile, courteous in every sense of the word.

"It's an honor to be here ma'am," he assured her.

Katsuko's smile widened so much that Tokio was surprised her mother could still see.

Tokio watched in horror as her mother took her leave of the group and disappeared, and she couldn't quite keep in the panicked little squeak that escaped when her mother left the archway.

_This is the first day of preschool all over again!_ she wailed.

"Tokioko?"

Her father's voice had her turning her attention back to the two other occupants of the room, who were watching her in puzzlement.

"Yes Papa?" she asked, voice coming out strained despite her best efforts.

"Is something the matter?"

_You mean besides the fact that you're probably silently counting the many ways you hate Hajime?_

"No Papa, nothing at all. I'm fine—great, even."

Her father didn't look at all like he agreed with that statement, but he didn't seem inclined to pursue it. Instead, his attention returned to Saitou, who was watching her with a faint frown that told her he knew she was lying and he wanted to know what was wrong with her and why she felt compelled to lie about it. Her father cleared his throat, managing to put all of his displeasure at finding Saitou staring at his daughter into the sound, and drew Saitou's attention.

And then they promptly went back to glaring at each other, and Tokio wondered if it would be considered insane to suddenly burst into loud, uncontrollable tears.

She searched her brain for anything to break the icy, choking atmosphere, but nothing seemed like a good idea. She didn't have her brother's ability for peace-making or her mother's ability for diffusing potentially volatile situations—all she had was her bull-headedness and her father's temper, and neither was going to do her a damn bit of good now. And then her father spoke:

"Tokioko tells us you're an assistant inspector with Bunkyo Ward."

"That's right."

"A recent promotion?"

Saitou's eyes narrowed further; they were now glittering amber slits.

"Two years ago. Why?"

"I hadn't heard of it," Kojuro replied. A pause. "And I have several friends in all the ward precincts."

Tokio froze, then slowly turned her head to stare at her father in horror—she had lived with him long enough to know when he was making a statement of fact and when he making a subtle threat, and that had definitely _not_ been something so tame as a statement of fact.

"That right—how nice for you," was Saitou's reply, and while Tokio hadn't known him as long, she had no trouble reading what he was actually saying:

_Don't try and scare me old man, I'll eat you alive._

The gloves were _definitely_ coming off.

"Ah—Papa, your tea's getting cold," she interrupted with a nervous smile. "You haven't taken a sip yet."

Kojuro didn't appear to hear her:

"She also mentioned that you were in charge of the investigation at her museum—so you were the one who caught those two bumbling idiots that broke in?" he asked, an unimpressed look on his face.

Saitou's jaw tightened, but the smile he wore was absolutely deadly:

"I was also the one who caught Wu Heishin six years after Nerima Ward let him slip out of their grasp."

Kojuro went rigid at that reminder, and Tokio had a vision playing through her mind on repeat of her father jumping on Saitou and brutally strangling him to death.

"Papa!" she yelped. "I heard Mama calling for you!"

Kojuro looked over at her, puzzled.

"I didn't hear anything."

"I'm pretty sure I heard her," Tokio lied, smiling so widely she thought her face might crack.

Kojuro frowned, then handed her his tea and rose and left he room, and as soon as he was out of sight Tokio let out a moan and shut her eyes and hung her head.

"This was such a bad idea!"

"I happen to think it's going well," Saitou said dryly, and her head snapped up and she sent him a furious look.

"You said you'd behave!" she snapped, and he frowned.

"He's the one being an asshole," he snapped back.

"Don't call my papa an asshole, asshole!"

"Well if the shoe fits Chiisai…."

She sent him a bitter look.

"I warned you—I _warned_ you. But do you listen? _No_! 'It's what comes next,' you said—'It'll be fine' you said—and so far it's been a train wreck!"

"It's not my fault your old man wants to start something," he said, voice venomous.

"You promised you'd behave!" she all but shouted.

"He started it!"

"So be the bigger man!"

"I am being the bigger man—I haven't decked him yet! And after that fucking comment about the Hirumas he deserved it!"

Tokio loudly shushed him.

"Language!" she hissed.

"Oh who gives a shit at this point," Saitou said irritably, and she shushed him louder. "I might as well light a cigarette, it's not like there's a chance in hell he'll change his mind at this point."

Tokio watched him with all her disappointment written on her face.

"You didn't even try," she accused, voice heavy with unhappiness. "The second Papa looked at you hard you gave back as good as you got."

He looked faintly uncomfortable now, but stayed stubbornly silent, and Tokio felt her stomach shrivel. She'd known this was going to happen. Both her father and Saitou were men who bowed for no one, and that made it hard to put them in the same room with one another, because each one was firmly convinced that he was the guy who was supposed to be in charge. They'd been fighting for dominance of the evening since they'd laid eyes on each other.

Kojuro returned a moment later, looked into the room and seemed satisfied that nothing untoward had gone on in his absence.

"Your mother wants us at the table," he told Tokio. "She said dinner should be ready within the next five minutes."

"Yes Papa," she murmured, rising and placing her cup and her father's on the tray, then taking Saitou's without looking at him. "I'll take these to Mama."

Kojuro nodded and let her by, patting her head affectionately as was his custom. Unfortunately, it didn't have its usual effect and make her feel better.

Saitou decided no one was better at making him feel like a complete and total dick than Tokio, especially when she wore the kicked-puppy look and looked like she was seconds away from crying. Even the crushing remorse his mother could inspire with one little sigh paled in comparison to Tokio's powers of guilt-inducement.

He really didn't think any of this was his fault, though. Okay, sure, he'd said he'd be on his best behavior tonight, but her father had set the tone for the evening when he'd sent him that hard look in the entry, and the hell if he was going to pussy out just because he was in the old man's house. Territory didn't mean shit, as far as he was concerned. And if the old man wanted to start something, well that was fine by Saitou. He didn't back down from a fight regardless of who it was—he didn't know the meaning of retreat, and he'd never bothered to learn.

Kojuro's gaze—full of disapproval and dislike, and serving only to fuel Saitou's stubbornness—fell on him and they glared at each other for several moments. Then the old man said,

"Dining room's this way."

Saitou followed him into the room, and the old man pointed out his seat—the place of honor at the head of the table. Saitou knew that that had to have been Katsuko's doing.

The two men sat down in silence and continued to eye each other with growing dislike.

"How old are you?" Kojuro demanded finally, and any pretense at good manners he'd put up for his daughter's benefit were gone now.

"Thirty," Saitou snapped. "Why? That a problem for you?"

"I'll decide at the end of this evening," Kojuro coldly replied. "Have you ever been married?"

"I really don't see how that's any of your business Takagi," Saitou said with more than a little temper in his voice.

"Anything that involves my daughter in any way at all _becomes_ my business," Kojuro replied, his voice dropping several degrees more. "That includes, but is not limited to, you and what you've done. Now please do me the favor of answering my question."

"This an interview or something old man?"

"You're a delinquent," Kojuro snapped. "I've heard plenty of things about Saitou Hajime of Bunkyo Ward, and none of it has been of a complimentary nature. How you became an officer remains a complete and utter mystery to me, and I can only think that the MPD's standards have dropped very low since the day I joined. Now answer the question."

Saitou was literally shaking with barely controlled fury.

How _dare_ this old shit!

"Once," he snapped. "For seven years. We've since divorced and gone our separate ways."

A muscle in Kojuro's jaw twitched.

"Gave up, did you?"

Saitou's eyes narrowed.

"Don't talk about shit you don't know about, _old man_."

"Then perhaps you'd like to explain it to me," Kojuro said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sure the excuse should be _quite_ entertaining."

When Tokio arrived in the kitchen with the tray, she found her mother at the stove, humming cheerfully to herself and keeping careful watch over dinner. Upon her daughter's arrival, however, she looked over her shoulder.

"How's it going sweetheart?" she asked with a smile.

Tokio set the tray down on the counter, walked to her mother and hugged her, burying her face in her mother's shoulder.

"Awful," she mumbled. "Papa hates him."

Katsuko patted her daughter's arm.

"Papa doesn't hate him," she assured. "You know how your father is, Tokio. I'm sure he likes Saitou-san just fine."

"Yeah, Papa likes Hajime the way he likes the flu," Tokio muttered.

"He's just giving Saitou-san a hard time the same way he gives every other young man who's come here in the past a hard time," Katsuko said, patting her daughter's arm again. "Your father has this ideal man in mind for you, you know that."

Tokio sighed.

"Mama, he keeps glaring at Hajime."

"Tokio, you know how your father is," Katsuko repeated patiently.

"But Hajime's glaring back," Tokio protested. "That's not a good sign."

"Everything will work out just fine," Katsuko said, serene as ever. "Now since you're here, help me, all right?"

So Tokio helped her mother carefully arrange their meal and cover the dishes so everything would stay warm, and then Katsuko asked her to call up Morinusuke and see how long he'd be.

"He ought to have been here by now," she added, and Tokio nodded and picked up the cordless phone and would have dialed her brother's cell, if it hadn't been for the sounds of things shattering and crashing and breaking coming from the direction of the dining room. Mother and daughter exchanged wide-eyed, alarmed looks, then ran for the dining room, and arrived just in time to see Kojuro hit the wall next to the doorway with enough force to crack it.

"Papa!" Tokio shouted, horrified.

"Kojuro!" Katsuko snapped, sounding more scandalized than horrified.

Tokio's gaze went to Saitou, who was making his way towards the older man with a murderous look on his face, and decided to leave her father to her mother. She cut him off and planted herself in front of him.

"Hajime!"

His gaze went to hers and she was a little taken aback by how absolutely furious he looked. But he did stop, and that was what interested her more. Once she was sure he wouldn't insist on being a barbarian, she turned back to her parents. Her mother was kneeling by her father's side, one hand on his shoulder. As for her father, he was watching Saitou with something very much like hate in his eyes, and where once his nose had been there was now a mess of blood.

"_Papa_!" Tokio shrieked. "Oh gods!"

"It's all right," Katsuko soothed. "Papa's fine Tokio."

"But his nose—!"

"It's just a broken nose, sweetheart, he's fine."

"_Just a broken nose_!?!"

"I'm going to take Papa to the emergency room so they can clean him up and set it," Katsuko said calmly. "Please turn the stove off Tokio."

Tokio watched her mother help her father to his feet and produce a handkerchief for him to wipe some of the blood off of his face, and then they left the dining room, and a few minutes later she heard the front door open and close.

It was silent for a long time, and then Tokio looked around at Saitou, who was watching her expressionlessly.

"Well, you got your wish after all," she said coolly. "_Dinner_ was extremely short, wasn't it?"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Morinusuke ended up arriving at six thirty-eight, and when he did, he found Tokio and Saitou seated side by side on the stoop. Both were wearing their coats and Saitou was smoking and neither was talking and Morinusuke got the distinct impression that he'd missed something really big.

"Hey Sis," he said, walking slowly up the walkway, cautious. "What're you doing out here?"

"Waiting for you," Tokio replied, voice clipped and Morinusuke raised an eyebrow.

"Look, I'm sorry I'm so late, but I got held up at the precinct and—" He suddenly remembered the man sitting next to his sister and realized this had to be the infamous "Hajime". He sent Tokio an expectant look.

"This is Saitou Hajime," Tokio said shortly. "Hajime this is my brother Morinusuke."

Morinusuke's heart stopped as he stared at the man.

"S-s-saitou…Ha-hajime? Of Bu-bu-bu-bunkyo?"

"The very same," his sister affirmed, and Morinusuke swiped off his hat and bowed low.

"Sir, it's an honor to meet you!" he said reverently. "I've heard so much about you!"

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah? Might wanna tell your old man about it," he dryly returned, and Morinusuke had a bad feeling about asking the next question but:

"Speaking of which, where is Papa? And how come you two're out here instead of inside?"

"Because dinner's over," Tokio said, and Morinusuke's eyebrows rose.

"What? That impossible, it's only…six forty. What'd you do, start right at six?"

"Oh no, we skipped dinner and just went straight for the fist fight," Tokio informed him, and the younger Takagi stared at her, then looked at Saitou.

"You got into a _fist fight_ with _Papa_?" he asked, incredulous, and Saitou rolled his eyes and sent Tokio an annoyed look.

"He started it," Saitou muttered, and Tokio glared at him.

"You broke my father's nose!" she exploded.

"I didn't mean to hit him that hard!" Saitou roared back. "Jesus Christ! He almost _castrates_ me with a fucking _porcelain shard_, but I accidentally break his nose and _I'm_ the asshole!"

"You promised me you'd behave tonight!"

"HE STARTED IT GODDAMN IT!"

Morinusuke stuck his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and shrilly whistled.

"Time you guys," he said. He looked over at Tokio. "Where's Papa?"

"Mama took him to the hospital," she said, still furious. "They should be back soon, since Papa has a lot of friends there."

"Sends them his victims often, does he?" Saitou asked sarcastically, and Tokio immediately tried to kick him.

Saitou caught her ankle before it connected with his knee, and Morinusuke rushed forward and grabbed her arms before she decided to try to strangle Saitou.

"Oi!" he shouted. "Cut that out—!"

He ended up grabbing her and throwing her over his shoulder, taking care to keep her legs immobile so she couldn't kick him.

"Put me down!" she ordered.

"Quit acting like a psycho and I'll think about it!" Morinusuke snapped.

"Don't take his side!"

"I'm not taking his side damn it!" Morinusuke bellowed. "Jesus, Tokio—I just don't want you to kill him!"

It took a while longer for him to calm her down enough that he felt safe putting her down, and when he did he immediately backed away, hands up to block in case she tried anything. To his relief, she didn't seem inclined towards retaliation right just this minute, though that unfortunately meant he'd have to keep an eye on her for a little while until he was sure she was in a better mood. Which, considering what had gone on at home tonight, didn't seem likely to happen any time soon.

"Dinner's still on the stove," Tokio informed him, voice more or less even. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring down at the walkway.

"Okay," he slowly said, nodding. "You want me to—"

"No," she said, and Morinusuke knew that was his cue to leave.

So he said his good-night to Saitou, who acknowledged it with a nod, and then went into the house. He lingered in the entry as long as was humanly possible, but didn't hear anything, and sighed quietly, knowing Tokio was waiting for him to leave the entry before she said anything else. So he left, silently asking the gods to make sure she didn't do something to Saitou that would land her in prison for the rest of her life, and walked to the kitchen to get some dinner. He passed the dining room on his way there and stopped abruptly, staring at the floor with wide eyes, then turned and went back to the doorway and took in the damage.

The floor was littered with broken china and glass shards. The table had been split completely in half, and half the table cloth had been shredded. The zabuton had also met untimely ends, as had parts of the tatami—about the only survivor in the room was the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, and Morinusuke absently figured, in the back of his mind where the shock hadn't interfered with his normal functioning, that that was only because it was too high up to become a weapon.

"Holy shit," he whispered at long last. "I can't believe I missed this."

Saitou watched Tokio in silence. He was ridiculously pissed that she seemed intent on blaming the evening's fracas on him. Part of him, anyway. Another part was a little stung that she didn't seem to believe that her precious father had started it. And still another part of him was feeling like he really and truly was a dick, because he had promised Tokio he'd try to win her father over and he had failed _spectacularly_. She'd been right, he hadn't even bothered to try to make nice—he'd been on the defensive since he'd laid eyes on the old man. He could have ignored the old man's attempts at provoking him, could have "been the bigger man" the way she'd asked him to be, but he hadn't tried to.

So, in an effort to make it up to her and correct his mistake, he took his cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it into the snow and rose and said,

"Come on, I'll take you out to eat, and then we can go to my apartment for a little while."

"No," she said quietly after a moment's silence, and he paused, eyes narrowing.

"Why not?" he asked after a beat.

She finally looked up at him and her face was impassive…but her eyes were diamond hard.

"Because Papa will be home soon, and if he comes back and finds I'm gone and so are you, he's going to come looking for me. And I rather think tonight's already been bad enough without another fight."

His jaw tightened, and while that just made it throb worse—he now knew where Tokio's insane strength came from—he didn't notice. Not when the part of him that was pissed off had taken full control at the faintly accusing tone of her voice.

"I didn't start that fight Tokio," he growled.

"No but you sure as hell finished it, didn't you?" she asked coldly.

"It wasn't my fau—!"

"You didn't have to hit him back!" she interrupted.

"I'm just gonna stand there and let him beat the shit out of me? What the fuck kind of sense does that make!?!"

He saw her eyes start to water and groaned—oh gods, _anything_ but this! He'd have gladly allowed her father to have a second go at castrating him with another porcelain shard before this.

"Tokio," he began, walking towards her.

"You shouldn't be here when Papa gets back," she said, head bowed.

He watched the top of her head, then sighed—pissed just didn't stand a chance against the kicked puppy look and teary eyes. And coupled with that horrifically sad little voice? He was now seriously considering committing seppuku. Or throwing himself in front of the next car he saw.

"Yeah fine," he muttered, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

He didn't say anything and neither did she; he just walked by her and left, feeling like an asshole of the lowest kind. And even when he got home and cleaned up and saw the nasty cut above his right eyebrow and the angry bruise beginning to form on his right cheek and how badly his jaw was beginning to swell up, he found it impossible to get good and pissed off again, because all he kept remembering was how utterly disappointed in him she'd looked, and that stung thousands of times worse than any of the damage Kojuro had done that night.

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_Previews of Chapter 27: Once More, With Feeling:_

"What did they argue about? You?" Kamatari asked sympathetically.

"They didn't argue, Kamatari-chan—they got into a _fist_ fight in the dining room and destroyed it."

There was a long beat of silence, and then Enishi said,

"_Please_ tell me you got this fight on tape."

---

"He wants you to be happy and well-taken care of by making sure you never find someone?" Kamatari dryly replied. "Because at the rate he's going he'll have disqualified every man in Japan by the time you hit thirty, kitten."

---

"I'll deck him," Enishi offered as Saitou took the stairs two at a time down to where they stood.

"I'll deck him too," Kamatari said.

Tokio raised a thin eyebrow and sent both men dubious looks.

"And have your brutal deaths at Hajime's hand on my conscience? No thanks."

---

"Is something wrong sweetheart?" she asked, looking worried.

"Oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods," was Tokio's frantic reply.


	27. Once More, With Feeling

**PART THREE OF A FOUR PART POST!**

This chapter tastes a wee bit angst-y in some parts. Beware, babies….

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Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

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Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Twenty-Seven: Once More, With Feeling_**

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Tokio arrived early to work the next day after a sleepless, miserable night.

When her parents had come home, her father had called her into their room and told her that Saitou Hajime was completely unacceptable and he didn't want her seeing him ever again, that the man was a delinquent of the worst sort and no one fit for her as a friend, much less a partner. She hadn't said a word, because Kojuro had been incensed and she knew better than to speak when her father was as angry as he'd been last night. So she'd quietly sat before him and listened without ever attempting to say a word in Saitou's defense, and the effort had cost her tremendously.

When she got back to her room she'd laid on her bed, face down, for a very long time, until her mother had come in and asked if she was all right. The question was so completely ludicrous that in any other situation Tokio might have been able to laugh. Instead, it had just made her burst into tears, and her mother had spent the next hour trying to console her with no luck.

She'd spent the night curled up in the center of her bed, miserable, and she'd been withdrawn and quiet when she'd come down to find her mother in the kitchen.

"How do you feel sweetheart?" Katsuko asked softly, eyes anxious.

"Fine," Tokio murmured.

"Do you want something to eat?" Katsuko asked after a pause.

"No," Tokio replied.

"Tea?"

Tokio had accepted a cup only to appease her mother, and she'd left the house before her father and brother came down for breakfast, leaving her mother with a kiss on the cheek and a dull "Good-bye Mama."

She'd spent the train ride to Bunkyo listlessly staring out the window, and hadn't enjoyed the walk to the museum in the least—not even the snow that had fallen early this morning improved her spirits. Sae had immediately noticed her subdued mood and had reacted accordingly, greeting Tokio without much fanfare and informing her that her tea and mail was waiting for her on her desk. Tokio had quietly thanked her and asked if it wouldn't be too much trouble for Sae to please replace the tea with coffee, as she wasn't in the mood for tea today. Sae had immediately assured her boss that it was no trouble at all, and her coffee would be ready in ten minutes. Tokio had nodded and entered her office, quietly closing the door behind her, before trudging to her desk and sitting down behind it heavily, still in her coat, trusting Sae to keep people at bay for her for a few hours more.

She had never, in her twenty-seven years, been this absolutely crushed. She hadn't been expecting her father to immediately welcome Saitou into the family or anything, but she hadn't been expecting Kojuro's violent opposition either. Her father had never been this adamant about the man Tokio was currently involved with. He was always a little difficult, because her father had certain expectations as to the man his daughter became involved with, but he had never been this intractable on the subject.

It didn't help that she was pretty sure she'd say yes in a heartbeat if Saitou asked her to marry him.

Learning what he'd once done in another life had surprised her, but it hadn't changed her feelings for him in the least. She was still a little uncomfortable with the idea of it, but she just decided she'd have to get used to it. She'd waited eight years for him, damn it, and she wasn't willing to let whatever he'd done before he'd met her interfere with that.

But her father was no ghost of the past, or rattling skeleton in her closet. And as much as Tokio loved Saitou—and she'd loved him for _years_—she also loved her father. Her fondest hope had been that they might one day get along, if not come to like each other, because she hadn't been so foolish as to think they'd immediately hit it off and become the best of friends.

But after last night's travesty, there was little chance of that ever happening, not as closed-minded as Kojuro was.

Her door burst open, and Kamatari exploded in, smiling and practically sparkling.

"Good morning kitten!" he gleefully greeted. "You'll never guess what—" He saw her sad, pale face and became serious. "What happened honey?" he asked urgently, rushing toward her and gathering her up into a hug.

Enishi walked into the room and shut the door—he was obviously the surprise Kamatari had been about to spring on Tokio. He walked over to her desk, his arm in a sling (at Tomoe's request, so as to safeguard against his using his hand before it was fully healed). His ear was no longer bandaged, and unless he styled his hair just so, you could see where Wu had shot off a part of the cartilage. When he'd complained about it, Tokio had teasingly told him that at the very least, he now had a wicked cool story to pick up chicks with.

He sat down on her desk, next to Kamatari, who was fussing over Tokio; she had buried her face in his thigh, and Kamatari was stroking her hair.

"What happened Tokio?" Enishi asked, rubbing her shoulder.

"Papa hates him," she said, voice muffled.

Enishi frowned, not knowing what she was talking about, but Kamatari looked alarmed:

"Saitou?" he asked, and Tokio nodded.

Enishi and Kamatari exchanged worried looks—they were familiar with Kojuro's opinions on who Tokio should be dating.

"Kitten, now, you know your dad never likes any of the men you date," Kamatari began, stroking her hair.

Tokio lifted her head and looked up at the both of them and if it had been possible they both would have shriveled into nothing right before her at the heartbreak on her face.

"He hates Hajime," she said, eyes watery.

Neither said anything for a long time—because really, what did you say to that?—and then Enishi slowly said,

"Well, Tokio…your dad's not exactly the easiest guy to get along with…."

"Enishi!" Kamatari barked, throwing him a black look.

"Well it's true!" Enishi replied defensively. "I've never even shown the tiniest little bit of interest in her, but he treats me like he expects me to kidnap and rape her! The only reason he even likes you is because he knows you're into guys so Tokio's "safe" with you!"

Kamatari eyed him with disapproval, but didn't try to refute the claim. Kojuro _did_ like Kamatari because he knew the younger man had no interest in women in the least—that was why Kamatari had been allowed to sleep over at Tokio's house, in Tokio's room, when they'd been in high school. Enishi had never seen the inside of Tokio's room in all the years he'd known her, and had only seen the inside of her house within the last two years, and even then only on nights Kojuro was working.

"Dinner was a disaster," Tokio said, resting her forehead against Kamatari's thigh. She snorted. "What am I talking about—we didn't even get to dinner. They got into a huge fight before we got to sit down together."

The two men winced.

"Oh man," Enishi muttered.

"What did they argue about? You?" Kamatari asked sympathetically.

"They didn't argue, Kamatari-chan—they got into a _fist_ fight in the dining room and destroyed it."

There was a long beat of silence, and then Enishi said,

"_Please_ tell me you got this fight on tape."

Kamatari promptly whacked the back of Enishi's head as hard as he could, and Enishi yelped and clutched his head with his good hand.

"OW! What the hell, you son of a bitch!" he roared.

"You're being insensitive, asshole!" Kamatari roared back. "Can't you see how upset my poor little kitten is?"

Enishi rubbed the back of his head and sent Kamatari a nasty look but didn't say anything, and Kamatari turned back to Tokio.

"Don't mind him, honey," he said. "Men can't help but be inconsiderate retards."

"Oi," Enishi snapped. "As much as it hurts me to say this, you're still a man yourself, ya frickin' Queen."

Kamatari sent the other man a frigid look but didn't dignify the remark with an answer. Instead he went back to stroking Tokio's hair and asked,

"What do you want us to do for you kitten? You name it, we'll do it—anything you want."

"Oi, put a disclaimer on that," Enishi muttered. "Don't give her ideas by sayin' we'll do _whatever_ she wants."

"Shut up," Kamatari ordered.

"Nothing," Tokio said quietly, interrupting. "Just…nothing."

Enishi frowned, only now realizing just how demoralizing last night had to have been for her if she wasn't even up to making some ridiculous demand or another of them.

"Come on Tokio," he said, squeezing her shoulder. "Just like the Queen said—whatever you want us to do, we'll do it, promise."

"It's okay you guys," she said, lifting her head up from Kamatari's thigh to smile wanly at them. "I appreciate the thought—it's very sweet of the both of you—but I don't need you guys to do anything for me."

Enishi pursed his lips for a moment, then sighed, deciding there was nothing for it:

"You know if Sada's band's playing tonight?" he asked, and Kamatari beamed at him.

Tokio gave him a listless shrug in reply.

"Well find out," he ordered. "If they are, we'll all three of us go see 'em. And if they aren't, we'll go out for drinks. Okay?"

Tokio watched him in obvious surprise for several moments, then smiled and held out her arms, and he rolled his eyes and leaned down and let her hug him. She kissed his cheek.

"Thank you Enishi," she murmured sincerely—Enishi thought her sister was completely out of her fucking mind and avoided her at all costs, so for him to willingly be in her company for Tokio's sake was quite touching.

"You gonna call her?" Enishi asked, patting her back.

"Yeah," Tokio said, as she squeezed him a little harder, sounding much better now.

"Aww!" Kamatari cooed, hands clasped next to his face and a sickeningly sweet smile on his face. "You two're _soooo_ cute!"

"Can it Queen!" Enishi snarled.

"Wait, do it again—lemme get my camera, and then I can use the picture as my Christmas card this year!"

"Go to hell ya fruity bastard!"

Tokio watched Kamatari get Enishi good and annoyed and had to smile. She knew Kamatari was doing it for her benefit, and Enishi was playing along instead of immediately trying to draw blood like he usually did for the same reason, and she appreciated Enishi's sacrificing his pride for her sake just this once.

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As it turned out, Sada's band was playing that night, and she squealed with excitement when she heard that not only would Tokio be going to see them, but Kamatari and Enishi would be joining her.

It was a different club they were playing, but Tokio had been there before, and she and Kamatari and Enishi got in through the backstage entrance with no trouble to say hello to Sada and the band. Sada made a point of jumping onto Enishi's back and enveloping him in a choking hug, because she knew the younger man thought she was crazy and she delighted in screwing with him whenever possible. She also refrained from asking after Saitou's whereabouts, as Kamatari had called her ahead of time and asked that she not mention the police inspector in any form or fashion.

When the band packed up and left the club at one, Tokio, Kamatari and one very long-suffering Enishi went back to the house with them, and the drinking began in earnest; Kamatari had liquored Tokio up a little bit, but Sada was convinced her sister needed a few more.

Which was how the complete story of Saturday night's row was told, unedited and unabridged.

"They broke the table?" Enishi asked, still sitting up through sheer will alone.

Tokio nodded, leaning against her sister's shoulder; Sada had an arm slung around her sister, and she had refrained from drinking.

"How the hell'd they do that?"

"Papa threw Hajime on it, I think," Tokio replied with a hiccup.

"Fuck," Ichiro said, then took another swing of his beer.

"Your dad's a beast, Sis," Jiro said, nodding in agreement with Ichiro's assessment of the situation.

"How'd it start Sis?" Etsu asked sleepily, her head on the table and her eyes half-closed.

"I dunno," Tokio said, then sniffled. "It was probably Papa's fault, 'cause as bad a temper as Hajime has I don't think he'd pick a fight with Papa after I told him not to. But I do know it stopped when Hajime broke Papa's nose."

The entire room went dead silent. Then, Sada quietly said,

"Give her another one."

"Oh honey," Kamatari said sadly, patting Tokio's arm consolingly and passing her another beer.

"How'd he even find the opening's what I'm wondering," Enishi said, tone incredulous. "Kojuro-san never leaves himself open, it's fuckin' scary."

"I dunno," Kamatari said thoughtfully. "Saitou's got a pretty sharp eye, though, and no matter how tight your stance is, there's always one weak spot. And I figure Saitou's got experience with hand-to-hand—looks like the type."

"The hell does that mean?" Ichiro asked, confused. "Fighters got a _look_?"

"Yeah," Kamatari replied. "Well, maybe not a _look_ per se, but you can always tell just by looking at them."

"Scars," Enishi said with an exaggerated nod of authority, and Kamatari rolled his eyes and nearly fell over, because rolling his eyes _really_ threw off his internal equilibrium.

"He didn' have scars, did he?" Ichiro asked Jiro, who shrugged and flopped back onto the floor.

"I dunno, man," he said. "I jus' know he was fuckin' _scary-lookin'_."

Sada rubbed her sister's arm and kissed her temple, and Tokio sniffled again and took a generous swig of her beer.

"It gets better, though," she said once she'd swallowed, clumsily wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "After Mama took Papa to the hospital, he wanted to take me home with him."

The room's occupants became a little uncomfortable at that announcement; Tokio didn't notice:

"He breaks my father's nose, an' then he says t' jus' leave with 'im. But the bes' part, is that I almos' said yes! '_Sure_! I'll go home with y'! One last, good-bye fuck, too, 'cause af'er tonight I'll never see you again! 'Cause now that you broke Papa's nose, he's gonna hate you for the res' of his life, an' if I stay with you he'll never speak t' me never ever again, like he won't speak t' Sada never ever again for starting her band an' doin' what she wanted a do an' bringin', _shame_ on the family! But if I don't see you ever again, Papa'll still love me an' talk t' me! I'll jus' die old an' alone an' bitter, with eighty million cats that'll eat my corpse when I die, 'cause af'er I die, there won't be no one t' feed the cats n'more, an' they gotta eat somethin', so I'll be the cat lady that got eaten by her cats! So sure, Hajime, sure I'll go home with you!'"

And then she burst into loud sobs.

"Okay," Sada announced abruptly, "that's enough for tonight. You guys clean up—Kamatari-chan, help me with her, okay?"

Kamatari nodded and rose unsteadily and helped Sada get Tokio upstairs to the bath room. Kamatari left Sada to getting her sister under the cold water and took it upon himself to call Tokio's house and inform her parents that Tokio was going to stay the night at Sada's, as Tokio was in no state to call home herself. As it happened, Kojuro was the one who answered the phone, and while he wasn't exactly pleased that Tokio was at Sada's, he wasn't willing to take issue with it, which put Kamatari out considerably—he was itching to dump on the old man for ruining Saturday night for Tokio, but he wasn't drunk enough to act without thinking something at least halfway through.

Kamatari had tried to get Tokio in a positive frame of mind for the dinner, even as he'd known that the odds of it being totally painless were somewhere around negative 200. Since befriending Tokio, he had known that her father had definite plans for the course of his eldest daughter and pride and joy's life. At first he'd thought it was sweet how proud Kojuro was of Tokio. She was all the old man talked about—her always perfect marks and her skill in karate and her wonderful personality, and her every achievement however small. As far as cheerleaders went, Tokio had the best one. But once he'd realized just how strict the old man was with Tokio, it hadn't seemed so cute anymore.

She'd had to be home early every night and wasn't allowed to attend any parties without parental supervision. All of her friends had to be cleared by him and he and Akira and Enishi had been the only boys Kojuro had approved of, Kamatari for his preferences and Akira because he was family and Enishi because Akira could vouch for him.

And then there was the issue of boys as boyfriends.

Tokio hadn't had a boyfriend until she'd attended college—no one in their high school was brave enough to take on Takagi Kojuro for the right. Kamatari had always felt bad for his friend; she was outgoing and smart and pretty, but her father's reputation made it impossible for her to have any kind of normal relationship with boys her own age.

Her first boyfriend had lasted two months; the Takagis had him over for dinner one night and the next day found Tokio on the market again. She hadn't been heartbroken by it, exactly, but she had been discouraged. The next one had also lasted two months, and was once again found wanting, so he was out too. The next one lasted two and a half months, but to no avail—he was sent on his way same as his predecessors. After the fourth one in a row (three months, a new record), Tokio had given up for a little while and taken her father's advice, which was that she should worry about school and forget about boys, they were only going to distract her. She'd finished her AA in Business Administration in time for Akira to name her Associate Director, and the dry period had lingered on for a few more years before Tokio had tried again. Of the next four, only two had had the dubious privilege of being grilled over dinner by Takagi Kojuro. The first one Tokio had been with for almost a year before she dared introduce him to her parents, and Kamatari had attended that dinner because he was curious as to what it was, exactly, that Kojuro did to drive these men away. It turned out that the old man treated them like convicted felons and interrogated them relentlessly. Katsuko and Tokio and Morinusuke were outright ignored if they attempted to intervene. The man had cracked halfway through and abruptly left, saying he had to go without bothering to make up an excuse, and Kamatari couldn't say as he blamed him. The look on Tokio's face, resigned disappointment, had made his heart ache, though.

The second one had been Akira's friend, Abe Yuichi, and he didn't technically count because he was a man Tokio occasionally went out with when she needed a date for some function or another and hadn't had any luck scaring up a steady boyfriend. He had passed the test partly because he was Akira's friend and also because he seemed to be everything Kojuro thought his daughter deserved in a husband: good breeding and impeccable manners and a comfortable income. That the man had very little personality didn't really figure into the equation, at least Kamatari didn't think it did, because otherwise Yuichi would have been immediately disqualified. He really wasn't sure what it was Kojuro had in mind for his daughter. Tokio had told him several times that her father had this ideal man in mind for her that didn't exist—not even Tokio, with the meager experience she had with men, was so naïve as to believe the "ideal man" was real.

"He wants me to be happy and well-taken care of," Tokio had said when Kamatari had asked.

"He wants you to be happy and well-taken care of by making sure you never find someone?" Kamatari dryly replied. "Because at the rate he's going he'll have disqualified every man in Japan by the time you hit thirty, kitten."

Tokio only smiled and shrugged, and they left it at that.

Kamatari actually admired Tokio's patience with the man's meddling in her love life. Then again, Kojuro was the sun, the moon and the stars for his eldest daughter, and had been since she'd been a little girl. And that would have been fine—if Tokio were still a little girl. But she was a grown woman now, and neither she nor her father seemed to be totally aware of that fact.

After hanging up with Kojuro, he called his apartment and informed his boyfriend that he wasn't coming home tonight either, that Tokio needed him, news which immediately worried the man—Tokio had always treated both of them very well, and Kamatari's partner appreciated it very much, especially since most people, even now, weren't very accepting of the lifestyle. He offered to help Kamatari with Tokio, but Kamatari assured him he had plenty of help in Tokio's sister and said good-bye. He then set about grabbing something for Tokio to sleep in once Sada brought her out of the bath room, then plopped down on Sada's bed to wait for the sisters Takagi. Enishi wandered in and plopped down next to him.

"They aren't done yet?" he asked.

"No," Kamatari said. "Soon, though. They should be done soon. Downstairs all picked up?"

"Yeah," Enishi murmured. A pause. Then: "That was bad, man."

"Mm," Kamatari agreed softly, nodding absently. "She's really serious about him. I always knew this was going to happen the day Tokio-chan fell in love and it wasn't with someone Kojuro-san approved of."

Enishi sighed and flopped back down onto the bed, eyes closed.

"Wish I could do somethin'," he said quietly. "Gettin' drunk didn't do shit all to help her."

"It got her talking, anyway," Kamatari said.

"No dumb ass, I meant me."

"Oh."

They were quiet again, and then Enishi sighed and sat up and rubbed a hand over his face.

"This is like when Sis got dumped by the fucker," he said wearily, running a hand through his hair.

"Tokio-chan didn't get dumped," Kamatari said.

Enishi laughed humorlessly.

"Dude, it doesn't matter," he said. "You think Saitou's gonna try and _compete_ with Kojuro-san? There's no way he wins. If it was her brother, or one of us, maybe Saitou woulda had a shot, but not against her dad. Why do you think Tokio's got so much trouble keepin' a guy? There's nothing wrong with her—except that she does pretty much whatever her dad tells her to do."

Kamatari frowned.

"I wish she'd moved in with me," he murmured. "If she had, things might be different now."

"I don't wanna do this again," Enishi said darkly. "Sis was bad enough—but Tokio…." He held his head in his hands. "I don't wanna see her like this."

"So go home then if you can't take it," Kamatari said coolly.

"I never said I couldn't take it asshole," Enishi snarled, head snapping up to glare at Kamatari for even thinking such a thing, much less saying it. "I just said I don't wanna see her like this. I never said I wanted a leave."

"Then grow a pair of balls and stop whining like a little bitch," Kamatari said, voice still cool. "That's not going to help her."

"Fuck you Queen," Enishi muttered just as the door opened and Sada and Tokio walked in, Tokio wrapped in a towel.

Kamatari immediately rose and smiled.

"How'd you feel kitten?" he asked, taking hold of her damp shoulders.

"Cold," Tokio said, still looking a little glassy-eyed and sad.

Kamatari nodded, then looked over at Enishi, who tossed the t-shirt and boxers Kamatari had set out for Tokio to the effeminate man and then turned around and faced the wall.

Sada and Kamatari got Tokio into the clothes, then laid her down in the bed, and Sada, Kamatari and Enishi joined her. It wasn't the first time the four of them had spent an uncomfortable night in Sada's little bed, but it was the first time it hadn't been because the four of them were drunk and celebrating whatever struck their collective, drunken fancy.

The two women were squished in the middle, with Kamatari on Tokio's other side and Enishi on Sada's. Tokio curled up against her sister and Sada stroked her hair.

"You feel sick Tokio?" Enishi asked, reaching over Sada to rub his friend's shoulder.

"No," Tokio whispered.

"She already threw up," Sada quietly told them.

Kamatari grunted.

It didn't take very long for Tokio to fall asleep, head pillowed on her sister's chest and arms wrapped around Sada so tight there was no way the younger woman could be comfortable. Sada didn't say a word, though; she only held her sister and stroked her hair.

"I guess you're glad you got out," Enishi murmured finally.

"Tokio was always Dad's 'Golden Child'," Sada murmured back. "She had to follow different rules than I did, more was expected of her, so even if I'd stayed, it wouldn't be the same. I keep telling her she can't be under his thumb her whole life, but she doesn't listen. I think she thinks she can make Dad happy and be happy too."

Enishi sighed.

"Gods I hate this," he said quietly, voice dark.

Kamatari didn't say anything, he just rubbed Tokio's back.

"You think this'll wake her up?" Enishi asked after a long pause.

It was silent again, and then Sada said,

"I dunno. 'Course, I never did understand how Tokio could stand to follow Dad's rules in the first place."

Enishi let out a long, slow breath.

"Well it's not like it matters anyway," he said darkly. "Not like Saitou's gonna want anything to do with Kojuro-san now."

"I wouldn't write him off so soon," Sada said, and Kamatari heard the smile in her voice. "Sexy-san's as stubborn as Dad and Tokio. Plus I'm pretty sure that he's as serious about Tokio as she is about him."

It was silent again for a minute, and then Enishi asked,

"'Sexy-san'?"

Kamatari snorted with ill-concealed laughter and Sada sighed.

"If you don't shut up and go to sleep I'll switch places with Kamatari-chan, and he's just _dying_ to molest you, aren't Kamatari-chan?"

"Mm, it's been so long," Kamatari agreed, smiling.

"Fucking perverts," Enishi muttered under his breath, and Sada and Kamatari laughed quietly so that they wouldn't disturb Tokio.

Despite the fact that a little laughter might have done her a world of good, she needed the sleep a lot worse right now.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Breakfast the next morning was loud and cheerful, and despite the hangover and her drawn features, Tokio looked a little better. Jiro's waffles and his and Ichiro's ridiculous antics helped too.

Enishi and Kamatari borrowed clothing from Jiro and Ichiro, and while it was ill-fitting for the most part, it was better than arriving to work in their slept-in clothes from last night.

"I'd leave clothes over at Sada's myself," Kamatari said thoughtfully as the three made their way to work together, a well-dressed if drawn and pale Tokio walking between the two men, "but I hardly ever see her, never mind stay with her."

"Must be convenient like fuck," Enishi decided, tugging at the collar of his borrowed shirt—Ichiro was tall enough that Enishi fit into clothes without looking completely ridiculous, but the younger man was much thinner than Enishi, so the clothes were tight and confining.

Tokio smiled faintly.

"Yeah, it is," she agreed lightly, and Enishi sent her a flat look that told her he hadn't been looking for any agreement from the likes of her.

The good mood lasted until they got to the museum and found one very visibly angry Saitou Hajime waiting on the stairs, dressed in jeans and a shirt and a coat. And when he saw the trio he started fuming in earnest.

"Uh-oh," Tokio murmured.

"I'll deck him," Enishi offered as Saitou took the stairs two at a time down to where they stood.

"I'll deck him too," Kamatari said.

Tokio raised a thin eyebrow and sent both men dubious looks.

"And have your brutal deaths at Hajime's hand on my conscience? No thanks."

"Where the _fuck_ have you been?!" Saitou bellowed, making several people passing near by flinch violently, and making Tokio wince as the elevated volume aggravated her throbbing head. "I've been calling you since _six o'clock_ last night!"

"Oi back off," Enishi snapped, bristling.

"Fuck off," Saitou snarled.

"I'll knock you on your ass if you don't back off asshole," Enishi warned.

"Enishi," Tokio said quietly, and Enishi sent Saitou a warning look but stood down. She smiled and patted his arm. "Thank you. You two can go inside now."

"But Tokio—" Kamatari began.

"I said you two can go inside now," Tokio repeated, a thread of steel in her voice now, and Kamatari and Enishi exchanged resigned looks.

"Okay," Enishi said grudgingly. "But if you don't come in in ten minutes, we're comin' out to get you."

"Just get to work please," Tokio said, waving them off. "It's a week day, remember."

The two walked into the museum as slow as humanly possible without looking like they were being too obvious about it, at least they thought so until Tokio very impatiently snapped,

"I said now, damn it!"

They then both jumped and quickly walked into the museum.

"You think it's okay?" Enishi asked.

Kamatari nodded.

"I trust Sada. She said not to write him off."

"If he makes her cry, though…." Enishi muttered, scowling darkly.

"Oh he's _so_ dead if he makes her cry," Kamatari assured.

Once Tokio was assured that her well-meaning, meddlesome friends were gone, she turned back to Saitou.

"Where have you been?" he immediately snapped, glowering at her.

Her eyes took in the damage to his face that her father had wreaked, and she idly agreed with something she faintly remembered hearing Enishi say last night, that it was amazing Saitou had managed to land a hit on her father—if he hadn't his face and most likely the rest of him wouldn't have been looking as good as it was.

Relatively speaking, of course.

"I wasn't aware that I had to check in with you every hour on the hour," she said mildly.

"I've been trying to get a hold of you since six!" he bellowed.

"Yes I heard you before," she replied, not even flinching at the elevated tone this time, despite the sudden, furious pounding it elicited from her aching head.

"Where _were_ you last night goddamn it?!"

She heard the frustrated edge to his voice this time, and realized he wasn't angry at being ignored so much as worried about it.

"With Kamatari and Enishi," she said. "We went to see Sada's band play."

He watched her, some of his belligerence leaving him now that his questions were being answered.

"Why didn't you call me back?"

In answer, she pulled her phone out of her purse and handed it to him. The screen was dark, and he looked back up at her, gaze questioning.

"Press the button with the little red phone on it," she said, and he followed her instructions and nothing happened.

"It died yesterday afternoon," she informed him.

He suddenly looked both relieved that her ignoring him had not been intentional, and embarrassed to have done all that shouting for nothing. He silently handed her phone back to her and she slipped it back in to her purse.

"I wanted to talk to you about Saturday night," he said quietly.

Tokio cleared her throat.

"I think more than enough's been said about Saturday night already," she murmured.

That statement had him looking very alarmed:

"I didn't start that fight, Tokio," he said.

"I know," she said, and he frowned, confused. She let her gaze drift to a point just past his face. "I know how my father is, and I didn't get the details, but I gathered he said something that upset you—"

"I'll apologize if you want me to," he said suddenly, and her eyes went back to his face, surprised.

"What?"

"I'll apologize if you want me to," he repeated.

She stared at him.

"But it wasn't your fault," she said, confused now.

"I'll apologize if you want me to," he stubbornly repeated.

"Hajime this isn't about who started what."

"Then tell me what you want me to do."

The earnest sincerity behind the statement made her heart ache.

"Hajime," she began.

"It's still a little my fault," he interrupted. "You asked me to play nice and I didn't."

"It was stupid of me to expect you not to retaliate," she countered.

"I didn't have to," he argued, and Tokio snorted.

"Hajime, _you_ don't even believe what you just said. How in the world do you expect me to?"

He was silent for a long time, and then he said,

"Tell what to do to fix it."

"You can't," she replied, meeting his gaze. Then she smiled crookedly at him. "I'm sorry about your face."

"Tokio," he said.

"I have to get to work," she said briskly. "I'm sorry I missed your calls, or if I made you worry."

"Can we just talk about this please?" he asked, visibly frustrated now.

"There's nothing to talk about," she informed him. "There's no way Papa's ever going to like you, much less approve of any relationship between us, not after Saturday night. And I'm not Sada," she added when he opened his mouth to say something. "I really wish I could be, but I'm not. Sorry," she said, voice cracking suddenly, then fled into the museum and into the safety of her office without looking at anyone. She locked the door and sat on the couch in silence for a very long time, hands fisted tightly in her lap and gaze trained on the floor, but she didn't cry, because she'd had her weak moment last night among friends, and she was at work now, and there was too much to do for her to indulge in the luxury of mourning the end of something that hadn't even started yet. So she'd just sit here until the weakness that had risen in her at the sight of Saitou trying to fix something that was irreparably broken had passed and she could get back to work, because life went on, and the museum couldn't afford for her to not be on top of things, even if her personal life was unraveling right before her eyes.

Tokio had never wanted to be her sister as badly she did right at that moment. Sada had always been able to say no to their father. But as much as Tokio would have liked to—and she had wanted to so many times!—she could never make herself disobey Kojuro. She hadn't wanted to go into business—she'd wanted to become a veterinarian. But Kojuro hadn't approved of that line of work for his eldest daughter, so Tokio had packed away that dream and dutifully taken up a profession her father had deemed more worthy of her.

There were days that Tokio thought that of his three children, she was the only one that had really made him proud. He had wanted Morinusuke to go into another field, one more comfortable for him than the life of a civil servant, but her little brother was content to follow in his father's footsteps, and though the younger Takagi had accomplished much in his short tenure with the Nerima Ward precinct, their father never wholly approved.

And Sada…she had never even tried to win their father's approval. Only Tokio knew how very hard that had been for her father, watching his child throw aside all these opportunities he'd tried to steer her towards, to abandon them for the uncertain and fickle life of a performer. Which made it even harder for her to say no, because she sort of felt like she was Kojuro's last shot.

Being stuck between a rock and a hard place was cake compared to being stuck between Saitou Hajime and Tagaki Kojuro.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saitou didn't try to contact her again the next day.

When she'd gone home and plugged in her phone to charge, she'd checked her missed calls and been stunned to find every single one (and there were _fifteen_) had been from him. He'd only left one message, the first time he'd called and received no answer. His voice had been polite, if a little tight as he'd asked her to please call him back when she found an opportune moment.

She'd played the message over and over and over again until she fell asleep.

She left the house before her father came down again, politely declining both tea and food of any kind before kissing her mother good-bye and leaving for the museum. She made small talk with Sae as usual, and Enishi and Kamatari made nuisances of themselves until she ordered them to work. She had just gotten rid of her friends when her phone began to ring, and she picked it up purposely without looking at the screen, hoping maybe it was Saitou.

It was her mother instead. Not totally unwelcome, but not what she'd wanted either.

"Hi Mama," she said with forced cheerfulness.

"Hello sweetheart," Katsuko said warmly. "How are you?"

"I'm okay," Tokio replied.

"Good!" her mother blithely replied. "Now, I called you up to ask what it was you were going to do for lunch, because I'm going to be in your neck of the woods around then, and I was hoping, if you weren't too busy, that you'd like to have lunch with me."

Tokio was pleasantly surprised by the news; she hadn't been out to lunch with her mother in years.

"I'd like that Mama," she said, smiling. "What time were you thinking?"

"Would noon be all right?"

"Yeah," Tokio assured. "Don't worry, noon's fine. Did you want me to meet you somewhere, or did you want to come to the museum…?"

"I think I'll meet you at the museum, if that's all right. Say about eleven thirty then?"

"Yeah, okay. I'll finish up a few things so you won't have to wait too long, okay?"

"All right sweetheart. See you in a little while."

"'Bye Mama."

She pressed the 'end call' button thoughtfully, wondering why her mother hadn't said anything about lunch before she'd left the house. Then again, maybe she wanted to escape Kojuro, and had only just thought of it now; Katsuko was furious with her husband for his behavior Saturday night, and she hadn't spoken to him since. He was off today, which meant the only way to avoid him was to leave the house.

Her mother arrived promptly at eleven thirty, and Sae showed her into Tokio's office. Tokio was on the phone with the people who were providing the plastic for the display cases, and for once it was a completely pleasant business conversation. Her mother looked around and admired her daughter's office while she waited.

"Sorry about that," Tokio said once she'd hung up. "Ran over longer than I thought it would."

"But everything's fine?" Katsuko asked, frowning faintly.

"Everything's fine," Tokio assured. She took in her mother's attire and smiled. "Mama you look like you're going to visit the Imperial Palace."

Katsuko smiled back, smoothing a hand over her best skirt.

"Well, it's not everyday I get to have lunch with my important daughter," she said proudly, and Tokio flushed.

"I'm not that important," she muttered.

Katsuko only smiled wider.

"Ready?" she asked.

Tokio nodded and grabbed her purse and coat, telling Sae she'd be out until one, then left arm in arm with her mother.

They headed toward a restaurant Katsuko said she'd seen on her way to the museum, chatting amiably about nothing particularly important. Tokio wistfully recalled her childhood and how when her mother had taken her and Sada shopping with her, Katsuko had always made it into an event for the girls, taking them to a very nice restaurant afterwards and declaring it was a "Girls' Day Out". She and Sada had always felt very grown-up and important on those days, and she reminded her mother of them and the two of them reminisced as they walked. In fact, by the time they'd reached the restaurant, Tokio was almost happy again.

At least until she saw her brother, her father and Saitou seated at a table in a corner of the restaurant, by the window.

She felt her face go white and let out a sound that might have been a squeak or a groan or both. Katsuko noticed:

"Is something wrong sweetheart?" she asked, looking worried.

"Oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods," was Tokio's frantic reply.

Katsuko looked in the direction her daughter was looking, then smiled and waved; the three men waved back; Tokio's "Oh gods" got a little more frantic.

"Tokio," Katsuko said, nudging her daughter. "Whatever's the matter with you?"

"Are you _kidding_?" Tokio half-shouted. "What the hell are they _doing_ here?!"

Katsuko frowned at her, and the younger woman went meek under her mother's disapproval.

"We're all here to have lunch," Katsuko said, and Tokio gaped at her.

"Lunch?" she repeated, incredulous.

"Lunch," Katsuko affirmed with a nod.

"And are we going to kill and eat each other, is that why we're all eating lunch together?"

Katsuko's faint frown made it abundantly clear what she thought of her daughter's attempt at humor.

"That's enough of that," Katsuko said, shrugging out of her coat and neatly folding it over her forearm. "Now come along."

"No," Tokio blurted, and Katsuko raised her eyebrows.

"Tokio," she said a little more firmly. "You're causing a scene."

"The scene Papa and Hajime'll cause will obliterate mine from memory," Tokio assured. "Blood's way more noteworthy than some woman having a nervous breakdown."

"Oh for heaven's sake," Katsuko muttered, grabbing her daughter's hand and tugging. Tokio grabbed hold of the wall with her free hand and dug her heels in. "Tokio! Let go this instant!" Katsuko hissed.

"No!" Tokio hissed back. "I like it here!"

"You're being ridiculous!"

"Mama please don't make me go in there! Please! If you really loved me you wouldn't do this to me!"

"You're acting like a child!" Katsuko tugged harder. "Really Tokio, and at your age!"

The stand off ended when Morinusuke arrived and pushed Tokio toward the table while Katsuko tugged. If Tokio weren't so appalled by the sight of Saitou and her father seated at the same table (and in her mind, seconds away from the continuation of the smack down of mythic proportions that she and her mother had interrupted Saturday night), the stares she was getting from the rest of the restaurant patrons would have mortified her. As it was, she wouldn't remember her freak out until much later. She would also conclude that she could never show her face in that restaurant ever again.

But that was later—this was now.

Between her mother and brother, Tokio was shoved down in to a chair next to Saitou, and Katsuko and her son took their seats. The group then sat in uncomfortable silence for the next two minutes.

Finally, Morinusuke rolled his eyes and said,

"Thanks for joining us Sis."

"I can't believe you used my own mother against me," Tokio muttered, glaring at him.

"That was Saitou-san's idea," Morinusuke informed her with no small amount of glee, and Tokio finally looked over at him.

Saitou raised an eyebrow, blatantly daring her to say something. And Tokio, being who she was, naturally took his dare:

"That was dirty," she spat.

"Oh well," he replied.

"Tokioko," Kojuro said suddenly, drawing her gaze.

The head of the Takagi family was watching Saitou with ill-concealed dislike, though he spoke to his daughter.

"I believe you've drawn enough attention to yourself for one afternoon."

Tokio flushed and lowered her gaze to the table.

"Yes Papa. I'm sorry."

Quiet descended again, and then Saitou cleared his throat.

"Takagi-san," he said quietly, eyes on Kojuro. They were completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever. "I'd like to apologize for my behavior Saturday night. It was disgraceful of me, and disrespectful to you and your family."

Tokio slowly turned her head to look over at the man seated next to her and stared at him in shock.

What. Was. He. Doing?!

"But Papa started the fight," she said before she thought better of it, and Saitou looked over at her, surprised.

Her father and brother stared at her, stunned, and her mother had the oddest sort of smile on her face—if Tokio hadn't known better, she'd almost think her sweet, cheerful mother was…_smirking_?

Tokio went red and turned her attention back to the table, her heart thudding loudly in her ears as panic set in.

_Oh gods I can't believe I just said that_, she thought frantically. _I mean, it's true,_ _but…**oh gods** **I can't believe I just said that!**_

"You have a point Tokio," Katsuko said finally, and Kojuro sent his wife the most appalled, incredulous look Tokio had ever seen her father wear. "Papa _did_ start that fight with Hajime-san."

"I—" One deceptively innocent look from his wife had Kojuro contemplating his next words very very carefully. "Please forgive my rudeness, Saitou-san," he muttered at long last, frowning and bowing his head so he wouldn't have to look at the younger man. "I treated you most disrespectfully Saturday evening, and behaved in a manner unbefitting of a man."

Tokio couldn't ever remember seeing Saitou struck speechless—and actually showing it. He was currently watching Kojuro as if he expected the older man to jump up at any moment and yell "Psyche!" and when it didn't happen he _really_ looked surprised.

Eventually, Tokio nudged Saitou into replying (Morinusuke looked like he was seconds away from busting a gut if he tried holding in his laughter any longer), and what followed was the oddest lunch Tokio had ever had with her family or Saitou. It was by no means comfortable, but Katsuko and Morinusuke kept things from getting too tense, and Morinusuke paid the bill to avoid a fight between Saitou and Kojuro—Katsuko had silenced both men's protests with one look when Morinusuke had announced his intention.

Tokio decided to ask her mother later how she'd perfected that look. Right handy thing to know.

Her parents left, Katsuko deftly manipulating Kojuro into leaving instead of lingering to watch his daughter and Saitou, and Morinusuke left as soon as he made sure Kojuro hadn't gotten away from Katsuko and wasn't hiding in the bushes or something with the intent of spying on Tokio.

"What scares me is that that isn't a joke," Saitou remarked as he and Tokio left the restaurant. "I can completely see your father hiding in the bushes."

"How in the world did you pull this off?" Tokio asked in wonderment, and he smirked.

"You weren't kidding when you said your mother thought I was great," he said smugly. "And then there's your brother, who is convinced I'm the gods' gift to the MPD—"

"Only because he hasn't spoken to people who actually work _with_ you," Tokio dryly interrupted, and Saitou sent her a look of feigned offense.

"Oi, keep it above the belt, huh?" He grew serious. "So. Ready to talk now?"

Tokio sighed and rubbed her forehead.

"Hajime, one very stilted lunch doesn't mean anything."

"It's a start," he countered. He tilted his head to one side. "Look Chiisai, I'm not sayin' I think your dad's ready to call me 'son' or anything like that—"

"Which will never happen, by the way," Tokio informed him; he ignored her.

"—but we're definitely on better terms than we were this morning."

Tokio watched him, then sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face.

"I don't know," she said finally. "If you want my honest opinion, I don't think today changed anything. I think the only reason he agreed is because I've been avoiding him and Mama's been upset with him, and he only did it to get back in our good books."

"I'll take whatever I can get right now," Saitou assured her. "I don't like you hiding from me, Tokio."

"I wasn't hiding," she protested. "You didn't call me."

"You didn't call me either," he replied pointedly, and she sent him a sour look.

"I used to win these arguments, once upon a time," she muttered.

He smirked.

"Get used to losing a lot more of them," he advised. "If I have to kiss your old man's ass from now on, Tokio, I'll do it." he added, and Tokio eyed him.

"Chiisai, have a little faith in me, huh?" he cajoled. "Today wasn't as bad as it could have been, you know."

"Believe me, I know—why do you think I freaked out the way I did?"

"That was quite entertaining, by the way—I'm seriously considering going back in and asking the maitre d' if I can have the recordings."

"Assuming they even have cameras," Tokio said dryly, not appreciating being the butt of his joke.

He walked her back to the museum, and they exchanged their usual banter back and forth the whole way. Upon reaching the steps, Saitou took hold of her wrist and rubbed his thumb against the underside of it.

"So," he said. "Where does that put us?"

"I don't know," she said, and he frowned at her.

"Tokio—"

"Hajime, I don't even know if Papa's going to be willing to forget about Saturday."

"So if he told you he still hated my guts you'd just not talk to me ever again, just like that?"

She sighed impatiently.

"I don't know!" she snapped, exasperated.

He looked disgruntled now.

"I ate lunch on my day off with the old—" Tokio sent him a warning look "—_man_, and I don't even get compensated? What the hell, Tokio."

"It's not easy, you know," she said, annoyed.

"Well how the fuck do you think I feel?" he demanded. "Jesus, you were fine with what I used to do, but your dad doesn't like me and that's it?"

She sighed and looked down, and stared at the hand around her wrist for a long time, then drew in a deep breath and looked up at him.

"Make sure you aren't working on Christmas Eve," she said finally, having reached a decision.

He frowned in confusion.

"What?"

"Make sure you aren't working on Christmas Eve," she repeated. "I'd like to…see you."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Regardless of what your father says?" he asked.

Tokio swallowed, then nodded.

"Regardless of what Papa says," she affirmed, and he eyed her, then nodded.

"I'll make sure I'm not working Christmas Eve," he promised. He watched her for a moment, then grabbed her chin and lifted it up to meet her gaze. "I waited a very long time for you, Chiisai."

"I know," she murmured, throat dry. She cleared it. "I was there, remember?"

He smirked faintly.

"Sometimes I wonder." He frowned as he suddenly thought of something. "Wait a minute, I'm not gonna see you until Christmas Eve?"

"It's Sunday," Tokio said.

"Well that doesn't mean anything!" he complained, and Tokio laughed and threw her arms around him and hugged him.

"You're such a baby," she chided, nuzzling his neck as he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed back. "It's like five days—I'm sure five days won't kill you, Hajime."

"Whatever," he muttered, and she laughed again and kissed his cheek.

"What if I said you'd be rewarded?" she asked, and he paused and sent her a speculative look.

"Hooker boots?" he asked, not quite able to keep the hopefulness out of his gaze and voice, and she rolled her eyes, smiling.

"Hopeless," she said with a sigh, kissing his cheek again. "You're utterly and completely hopeless, Saitou Hajime."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Previews of Chapter 28: A Very Saitou Christmas:_

"What the hell?" he asked finally.

"I have dinner," Tokio cheerfully announced. Said dinner jiggled ominously from its perch atop the box as she shivered a little. "Unless you give me a hand, that is."

---

"So what did you get into trouble for?"

"Fighting with the other kids, mostly."

"I'm shocked," she said dryly, and he chuckled and rubbed a hand up and down her back.

---

"Welcome to the twentieth century," she dryly remarked, and he grinned.

"Aren't we in the twenty-first?" he remarked.

"I'm easing you into it," she replied, and he laughed and kissed her.

---

"Oh come on," she cajoled.

"Well it's not like I have a choice now is it?" he muttered, and she sighed.

"Fine, I'll call him and tell him we aren't going."

"No you won't, because then it's my fault we didn't go," he said immediately. "And the hell I'm going to take blame for that."


	28. A Very Saitou Christmas

**PART FOUR OF A FOUR PART POST! READ CHAPTERS 25, 26 & 27 BEFORE READING THIS ONE!**

**And Merry Christmas!**

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For: 

Christmas cake: usually made of sponge cake, whipped cream and strawberries (www(dot)japan-guide(dot)com has a picture of one on its Christmas page for those interested in seeing what these cakes look like...and trust me, as a professional Tubby McFatty, they look very good); According to "Christmas in Japan," the Japanese celebrate Christmas by eating this cake, which the father of the family buys (or the mother if Papa-san's working Christmas Eve), and stores all over carry versions of the cake. They drop the price drastically on December 25th in order to sell out by the 26th, which gave rise to calling young women who were still unmarried by age 25 "Christmas cakes", the implication being that they're good until 25, and only with the help of "heavy discounts" will they be able to find someone willing to marry them after 25. …How charming. Anyway. I have no idea when Christmas cakes became a Christmas staple (none of the websites I visited could tell me), so we're going to pretend they've been around for a long while.

bento: single-portion takeout meal; traditional meal (according to Wikipedia) consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Available at convenience stores, bento shops and homes all over Japan. It's considered an essential skill of a housewife to be able to put together an appealing boxed lunch.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Christmas Eve in Japan: I can't do it justice, so I'll let Billy Hammond do the explainin' for me: "Christmas Eve has been hyped by the T.V. media as being a time for romantic miracles. It is seen as a time to be spent with one's boyfriend or girlfriend in a romantic setting, so fancy restaurants and hotels are often booked solid at this time. It is often also a time when girls get to reveal their affections for boys and vice versa. Because of this, extending a girl an invitation to be together on Christmas Eve has very deep, romantic implications." Wild, huh? Hammond mentions that the Japanese Christmas most closely resembles the Western concept of St. Valentine's Day, while the New Year's holiday is more in keeping with the Western concept of Christmas.

Christmas Eve dinner: Again, Billy Hammond says it best: "In recent years, thanks to the marketing prowess of the folks at Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Christmas Chicken Dinner has become quite popular. Many Japanese even make reservations for their "Christmas Chicken" ahead of time. People line up at their outlets to pick up their orders. As a result of KFC's brilliant advertising campaign, most Japanese now believe Westerners celebrate Christmas with a chicken dinner instead of the more common ham or turkey." I did a little digging around, curious, and the appeal of a chicken dinner makes sense when you consider that most Japanese ovens are way too small to fit a ham or a turkey. So even if you can't order your KFC Christmas Chicken dinner, you can still make one at home. I salute the advertising folks at KFC—they is some crafty crafty people.

Christmas presents: Hammond says Christmas presents are "exchanged between people with romantic commitments as well as close friends, and that the presents tend to be 'cute'" (i.e., teddy bears, flowers, jewelry, etc), and maybe also "slightly expensive because of the relationship to the person to which they are given to." According to www(dot)japaneselifestyle(dot)com(dot)au, within families, presents are only given to children, and children don't give their parents anything, because the idea is that Santa Claus brings the presents, and once children no longer believe in Santa, presents are no longer given.

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

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**_Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Very Saitou Christmas_**

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Christmas Eve Day found Tokio conspiring with her mother.

Katsuko and Tokio had planned the evening in minute detail, and had drawn up backup plans should something go wrong. Nearly all of these plans and backup plans involved not letting Kojuro figure out that Tokio was going to be spending Christmas Eve with Saitou.

Consequently, they were very meticulous, elaborate plans.

They also involved enough saké to kill Hiko Seijuurou.

Once Tokio was sure Kojuro would be well-taken care of, she was able to turn her attention to her other set of plans, the ones involving herself and Saitou. She had refused to let him in on it, only saying that she expected him to be home Christmas Eve, and if he wasn't there would be hell to pay, and quite possibly for the duration of his life, because Tokio didn't take Christmas Eve lightly—not when it was the first one she wouldn't be spending with a single Enishi in a restaurant watching other couples enjoying a romantic night out, or worse, having dinner with Kamatari and his partner and having to watch them be all lovey-dovey with each other while she sat with them and felt like a loudly squeaking third wheel.

So yes, she'd put a lot of effort into this, despite the fact that most of it had been woefully last minute. Like dinner. Dinner was an important part of the evening, and every restaurant in Tokyo was booked solid, so going out wasn't even an option. She didn't feel particularly up to cooking some big extravagant meal, either (she didn't like to cook the way her mother did, so the majority of what Tokio cooked, while better than what Saitou could do, was for the most part fast and no-fuss). But thank the gods she had Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And so it was that at eighty thirty, Tokio found herself walking through a light snowfall to Saitou's apartment with a chicken dinner under one arm and a box under the other, her purse on one shoulder and her overnight bag hanging off the other. She had a feeling she was going to be frozen by the time she got there, or at least half-frozen. Then again, she figured Saitou would be more than willing to fix that, and she smiled and shook her head.

"Pervert," she murmured affectionately.

It took her a while to get there because as cold as she was, she loved walking through snow, and she purposely slowed down so she could enjoy it. So she didn't get to his apartment until well after nine, and by then her nose and cheeks were red and her hands were cold, even through the gloves and she barely felt her feet anymore through the boots. But she was in high spirits when she awkwardly knocked on his door, hoping the gods would be kind and neither the dinner nor the contents of the box would meet untimely ends via a tumble to the floor. Happily, they seemed to be in as festive a mood as she was, because nothing fell, though she had a couple of scary seconds before the door opened and Saitou stared at her in surprise.

"What the hell?" he asked finally.

"I have dinner," Tokio cheerfully announced. Said dinner jiggled ominously from its perch atop the box as she shivered a little. "Unless you give me a hand, that is."

He obligingly took the bag containing their food from atop the box, and Tokio grinned at him, leaned up and kissed him.

"Hi," she said.

He grunted, eyeing her. "You're cold as hell, Tokio."

"It's snowing outside," she informed him, eyes twinkling.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't look particularly annoyed.

"Would you get in here?" he asked dryly.

He moved back to let her in and shut the door, then took the box from her and set it and dinner on the table before going back to the entry to help her out of her coat and boots. The overnight bag was placed in his room, and he was very pleased to see it:

"I guess that's a good sign," he remarked, watching her set the table as she hummed to herself.

"What is?" she asked, not looking up from what she was doing.

"That bag you hauled over here."

She smiled.

"You could say that, yes," she said. "Did you eat already?"

"No," he lied; he'd had some instant soba a few hours ago while he'd been waiting for her, wondering what she was planning, and also wondering if he should be concerned or afraid or both. Turned out none of these options was the appropriate response, for which he was exceedingly grateful—that overnight bag couldn't be a bad thing.

The contents of the box intrigued him, but she wouldn't tell him what it was or let him look, so he abandoned trying to investigate it after she whacked his hand away for the eighth time when he tried to look, under the mistaken impression that she wasn't watching again.

Dinner reminded him of Christmases past. His mother, being from the country and having been raised to do everything herself, had always insisted on making dinner rather than buying it, and he and his siblings had always looked forward to it because their mother's spread was always excellent. As a kid, he'd looked forward to Christmas Eve solely for dinner, not because of Santa Claus; ever suspicious, even as a little boy, Saitou had not liked the idea of some fat guy in a red suit sneaking into his house in the dead of night, even if he did leave some wicked good presents. He'd been relieved, not disappointed, to learn that Santa didn't actually exist and that it had been his parents the whole time, though he'd told them that he would have preferred knowing that rather than believing some weirdo was breaking into his house one night a year for the first ten years of his life.

It had been a while since he'd eaten dinner with his family on Christmas Eve, as he was usually working; it was one of the nights when the MPD suddenly found itself short men, and since Saitou didn't really care much for holidays it was no skin off his nose to be working. The last time he'd really cared about Christmas had been around fifteen. His parents had long stopped giving him presents, instead giving him a substantial amount of money (which was more than a lot of his classmates got), which he could be counted on to blow on several things he really didn't need, most of the time in Okita's company, because his friend had this frightening talent for being able to talk Saitou into almost anything, and at fifteen, a lot of things that had sounded like great ideas in the beginning hardly ever ended well.

Saitou had since developed some semblance of immunity to Okita's talent, in an effort to both keep himself out of the poorhouse and keep from getting thrown in prison.

The contents of the box turned out to be a Christmas cake, which Saitou decided he should have been expecting.

"This is my favorite part of Christmas Eve," Tokio informed him as she cut him a slice.

"The actual dinner itself was mine," Saitou informed her, and she shook her head, smiling.

"Of course," she murmured.

Despite Saitou not being much of a dessert person, he enjoyed the cake. When he mentioned it to Tokio, she smiled at him.

"Mama told me where Papa usually buys them on the nights he isn't working Christmas Eve. It's this little hole-in-the-wall bakery close by the precinct. I swear they make the best Christmas cakes in all of Tokyo. The cakes from everywhere else just never taste as good."

"My mom used to make ours," Saitou said thoughtfully. "This one sort of tastes like hers."

Tokio looked intrigued.

"She used to bake it herself?"

"Uh-huh. Used to make dinner herself too. We never had anything frozen in the house, Mom always made everything from scratch. I used to think everyone ate as good as we did, 'til I actually ate over at Souji's once. Then I understood why he was always at my house eating all my food, the little leech."

"Mama always made Christmas dinner herself too," Tokio said, resting her chin in her hand. "But the cake was Papa's responsibility."

"Your mother really goes all out," Saitou remarked. "I was real disappointed I didn't get to eat whatever it was she'd made last Saturday night—smelled great."

Tokio grinned.

"I think if Mama hadn't married Papa, she would have become a chef," she said. "You should have seen my bento when I was a kid—it was always the best-looking bento in the whole school. I always felt bad eating it because it looked so pretty."

"My bento were never works of art, but they tasted a hell of a lot better than everyone else's, so I didn't really care."

"You wouldn't," she teased. "Typical man, thinking with his stomach."

"It's an inherited trait in my family," he informed her with a smirk. "Dad ate a rice ball Mom made and decided he was going to marry her. He then spent the next three years trying to convince her that he wasn't insane."

Tokio smiled.

"And he did and they lived happily ever after?" she supplied.

"No, he was completely insane and Mom knew it but she married him anyway," he corrected.

"That's a terrible thing to say about your father," she chided.

"You'll see what I mean when you meet him," Saitou said. "He used to be able to control it or hide it or something, 'til he hit forty. Now he's a total whack job."

She sat up and sent him an odd look.

"I'm going to meet your father?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, eventually," he said. "My mom too."

"They know who I am?"

"Yeah."

She looked surprised by this information.

"When did you tell them?"

He shrugged.

"Last year."

She blinked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"They heard about you last year," he repeated.

"We weren't going out last year Hajime."

"I'm aware of that," he said with a touch of annoyance. "But you asked if they knew who you were. I told my old man while we were drinking—that's how he hears about a lot of what's going on in my life, because I don't like telling him anything."

"Why not?"

"Because he's insane," Saitou replied. "So he told my mom and the next day she calls me and says she's so happy for me, and I can't remember what the hell happened the night before, and when I hear about it I have to explain it to her. Luckily she didn't tell my brother, or he'd have showed up to congratulate me in person, and then I'd have had to kill him, because he took after Dad."

"Is your mother the only normal one in the family?"

"Are you kidding? She married Dad _willingly_. There's _no way_ she's normal."

Tokio laughed.

"You're such a jerk," she told him, still laughing.

Saitou was feeling far too sleepy to consider bedding Tokio the way he'd been planning to at dinner's conclusion, so they plopped down on his bed, Tokio snuggled against him.

"How many brothers and sisters do you have?" she asked drowsily.

"One of each."

"Older or younger?"

"Older—I'm the baby."

She laughed at that.

"I have a very hard time picturing you as a baby."

"I have proof," he informed her. "Or Mom does. And she'll gladly show you every single picture she ever took of me."

"You don't sound very upset by that possibility," she noted.

"It's not a possibility, and I'm not upset—I was an adorable baby." he smugly informed her, and she laughed. "I was. Everyone used to say so."

"A little heartbreaker, huh?" she teased.

He snorted.

"Fine, just you wait, you'll see."

"You must have been a terror as a child."

"Actually, I was the good one."

"Yeah right."

"I was—my brother was the demon spawn. He always got into trouble. I was way better behaved than he was. I only got kept after school a couple times in grade school. He was kept after pretty much every afternoon until he finally graduated high school."

"But you still got into trouble as a kid," she remarked.

"Technicality," he said. "Besides, my sister used to get into trouble too—she used to talk too much."

"So what did you get into trouble for?"

"Fighting with the other kids, mostly."

"I'm shocked," she said dryly, and he chuckled and rubbed a hand up and down her back.

"It wasn't everyday," he said. A pause. "And I had kind of a wise-ass attitude too."

"'Had'?"

"Oi, quiet you."

"What did your brother get into trouble for?"

"Everything," Saitou replied with a smirk. "He wasn't really a bad kid, he just had a lot of bad ideas and no impulse control."

"Who's oldest?"

"My sister. Katsu."

"Ha—older sisters rule."

"No way," he said immediately, and Tokio laughed and leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"Spoken like a true baby brother," she teased.

"She still treats me like a fucking baby," he muttered resentfully, and Tokio laughed again and hugged him.

"Poor Hajime."

"I'm thirty and she still treats me like I'm five, can you believe that?"

"Yes, actually—you have your moments."

"I wasn't looking for an actual answer, Chiisai," he growled.

"Are they married?"

"Yeah. Katsu married some doctor, and they have a kid like every other year or something."

"Ah, so you know the joys of uncle-hood."

"That's right—I fill 'em up with sugar and give them back to their parents," he said with a decidedly evil smirk on his face, and she shook her head.

"What about your brother?"

"Him too. Don't know why his wife puts up with him though."

"No kids yet?"

"They have one daughter. His wife then decided to get her tubes tied—labor had quite an impact on her, as I understand it."

"It's not easy pushing something the size of a watermelon out something the size of a lemon," Tokio informed him, and he raised an eyebrow and looked down at her.

"And just how do you know what it feels like?"

"I don't," she said. "But that's the analogy Mama used when I asked. She had all three of us naturally."

"Even your brother?"

"Morinusuke wasn't always so big, Hajime."

"I know that woman—but I figured he was a little larger than you or your sister."

"Well, Sada was born a month early, so she was the smallest of all of us—she's been doin' her own thing since day one," she wryly added. "And I was a week early. And Morinusuke was too, come to think of it."

"All three of you impatient to get out into the world?" he dryly asked.

"Something like that. How about you?"

"According to my mother, I was in no particular rush whatsoever. Due date came and went and about a week and a half later, I decided to grace the world with my presence."

"Ah—so you were born arrogant. Always figured I was right about that."

"Quiet you. I'll have you know I ushered in the new year the night I was born."

Tokio laughed at him.

"You're such an ass."

"You like it."

"For some reason, yes," she agreed, leaning up and kissing him.

They ended up falling asleep, though it didn't last long; Tokio was awakened by the ringing of her cell phone, and she crawled out of bed and out of a grumbling Saitou's embrace to answer it.

It was Kamatari, cheerfully wishing her a Merry Christmas, and she shook off enough of her sleepiness to wish him a Merry Christmas back. She then talked to his partner, and hung up.

"Why didn't you put that thing on silent?" Saitou groused, yawning.

"Oh stop it," she ordered, walking back into the bedroom and going to her overnight bag.

"Come back over here," he said.

"In a minute," she replied, then rose and turned around, grinning, hands behind her back. Saitou was immediately suspicious.

"What?" he asked warily.

She bounded over to the bed, plopped down next to him and produced two boxes from behind her back.

"Merry Christmas," she said, leaning forward to kiss him.

He wasn't necessarily surprised, since Kamatari had warned him that Tokio had gotten him something, and then dragged him to the mall to buy her something. It had been the longest three hours of his life, especially since Kamatari had been in his usual _charming_ form, but he'd gotten her something the effeminate man had said, more than a little impressed, that Tokio would love, so it hadn't been completely terrible.

He'd only bought her one thing, though—he hadn't been prepared to receive two.

"Open it," Tokio urged.

"Does it matter which one?" he asked, sitting up.

"No," she said, but she then proved herself a liar when she picked out the larger of the two and held it out to him.

He accepted it with a faint smile and tore the paper and opened a very nice and expensive looking wooden box to find an old-fashioned looking steel pocket watch happily ticking away the time. He paused, surprised, then looked up at her. She was watching him with wide eyes, waiting for a reaction.

"Wow," he said finally.

She immediately grinned.

"You like it?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, and he did—his grandfather had had a pocket watch that he'd coveted as a kid, because the old man had informed Saitou that any man worth a damn always wore three items: a hat, a handkerchief and a pocket watch. Part of the reason Saitou liked his job was because he wore a hat, as weird as that was, and the handkerchiefs were easy to get too, even though he occasionally caught grief about it from Okita, who accused him of being about seventy years behind the rest of the world. But the last one had proved more difficult to practice; his grandfather's pocket watch hadn't survived, and Saitou had always been disappointed by that—the old man had promised to give it to him when he came of age. When he'd turned twenty, his grandfather had offered to buy him one (only Saitou had ever showed any interest in actively wanting the ancient time piece), but Saitou hadn't wanted one—stubborn as he was, he had decided if he couldn't have his grandfather's pocket watch, he just wouldn't have one.

Not a day didn't go by that he decided he was an utter moron for not taking the old man up on his offer.

Oh he could have bought himself one, but it wouldn't have been the same, so despite wanting one, he'd never gotten it.

"I thought of you when I saw it," Tokio explained, looking pleased with herself. "The chain's original, too."

He blinked.

"'Original'?" he parroted.

"Yeah," she said, and her smile widened.

"This is an _antique_?" he asked incredulous as realization dawned—he'd thought it was a new one made to look like an old one.

"Uh-huh—with love from Udou-san."

Even the news that she'd gotten it from Jin'e couldn't penetrate his astonishment.

"Holy shit," he said, and she laughed and clapped her hands.

"Try it on, lemme see!" she urged.

So he obligingly got up and clipped it on one of the belt loops of his jeans and slid it into his pocket.

"That's gonna look great with your uniform, Inspector," she said approvingly.

"I can't believe you got me a pocket watch," he said, and she blushed.

"Yeah, well, I thought it suited you," she said with a shy shrug.

He wasn't used to feeling grateful, but she made it a surprisingly painless experience. He grinned and leaned down and kissed her soundly.

"Thank you Tokio," he said sincerely, and her blushed deepened.

She grabbed his other present and held it out to him.

"Don't thank me yet, you still have another one."

So he sat down again and tugged her into his lap and opened the next one, to discover she had gotten him a Zippo lighter, chrome case with a wolf walking over the silhouette of another one howling at the moon—it'd be damn hard for anyone to mistake this lighter for their own, and he sort of expected that was why she'd picked it in particular.

"Welcome to the twentieth century," she dryly remarked, and he grinned.

"Aren't we in the twenty-first?" he remarked.

"I'm easing you into it," she replied, and he laughed and kissed her.

"Okay, I get it, I get it. But in my defense, my mother's father had a huge influence on my childhood."

"And it shows Grandpa," she teased.

"Oi, a little more respect, huh? Or I might decide not to give you yours."

Her eyes lit up.

"You got me something?" she asked, and he pressed his lips together to keep from laughing—she looked like a little kid.

"Yeah—it's in the bedside table," he said, gesturing with his thumb to the one on his side; he'd been planning to give it to her after, but best laid plans and all that. Still, this wasn't a bad Option B.

As he'd known she would, Tokio immediately went into the drawer and retrieved her present, ensconcing herself once more in his lap. She held the box up to her ear and shook it, pursing her lips and listening very carefully to see if she could figure out what it was.

"Would you open it already?" he demanded in amused exasperation, rolling his eyes.

She stuck her tongue out at him, then held her present out to him.

"You open it."

He sent her an incredulous look.

"It's _your_ present," he said.

"And _I_ want you to open it," she insisted, waving the box in his face.

He sighed, and took it from her, muttering about women and their weird eccentricities as he tore the paper off and opened the box. He then presented it to her, to find her eyes shut.

"What're you doin' crazy?" he asked, laughing.

"Is it opened?" she asked.

"Yeah."

She opened her eyes and looked down, and her jaw dropped. The silence lasted for all of two seconds: she let out a shriek that made his ears ring, and threw herself at him, arms around his neck, and nearly caused them to fall backwards off the bed—by some amazing feat he hadn't thought himself capable of, he managed to keep them from hitting the floor, which despite being carpeted would still hurt _a lot_ on impact.

"I'm going to guess that you like your present," he said wryly.

"Are you insane?" Tokio demanded. "This must have cost you a fortune!"

He shrugged. "Not really." She pulled back from him and sent him a flat look, and he reconsidered his answer. "Okay, maybe a small one."

"Hajime," she said, looking stunned.

"Stop," he ordered, grabbing the arm of the hand that held the box, and tugging it from around his neck. He took the box from her and got the necklace out, then motioned for her to turn around. She eyed him like she was thinking about refusing, and he raised an eyebrow. She heaved a sigh and hesitantly turned around, and he looped the necklace around her neck, shut the clasp, then told her to turn around. When she did, he grinned, pleased.

"Looks good on you Chiisai," he informed her, and she fingered the circle pendant.

"It does?"

"Go check," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the bath room, and she hopped off the bed to see for herself.

She padded back in a few minutes later, blushing and smiling shyly.

"It is very pretty," she said, and he smirked, head pillowed by his arms.

"You're welcome Tokio," he said dryly, and she crawled onto the bed and snuggled into his side, then leaned up and kissed him.

"Crazy man, buying me a diamond freaking necklace," she muttered, smiling, then noticed his pocket watch was sitting on the bedside table next to his cell phone. "You took it off," she said, frowning faintly.

"Yup."

"How come? Don't you like it?"

"Oh I do. And I aim to show you just how happy I am with you Chiisai," he said, grinning wolfishly, as he popped the first button on her blouse out of its buttonhole.

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Saitou decided that Tokio should wear nothing but a diamond circle pendant necklace more often.

Well. Around him, anyway.

She was still asleep when he was jerked awake by the sound of his alarm going off, and he reached back and whacked the hell out of the general direction of the off button before the alarm woke her up.

He'd had to trade days with someone else in the department to get Christmas Eve off, and he wasn't particularly looking forward to working Christmas Day, for the sole fact that he usually had it off and it was one of the few days of the year he slept in and didn't feel like a bum for doing it. But, he decided upon seeing Tokio still asleep beside him, last night had been more than enough compensation for changing the usual schedule.

He yawned and rolled over to glance at the clock, and made a sound of disgust—getting up at six thirty on Christmas Day. Just wasn't natural, damn it.

"You're loud," Tokio murmured, and he looked over at her, surprised.

"You're awake?"

"Hard to sleep through you killing the alarm clock," she pointed out, opening one eye lazily. She smiled sleepily. "Merry Christmas Hajime."

"You said that already," he said.

"Mean," she muttered, snuggling closer and rubbing her cheek against his chest.

"Don't get comfortable," he warned. "I have to get up."

"Lies," she replied, and he snorted in amusement despite himself.

"I'm working today, Tokio," he said, and she groaned.

"Why?" she whined.

"Well how do you think I got last night off?" he said, and she groaned louder.

"That's not fair," she muttered.

"Life ain't fair babe," he dryly replied, reaching down and patting her rear end through the sheets. "Now let go."

"Call in sick," she said suddenly, and he paused, thrown off.

"Huh?"

"Call in sick," she repeated, looking up at him.

He stared down at her.

"I'm not sick," he said finally, and she sent him a flat look.

"I know that," she said irritably. "But if you call in sick, you won't have to work today, and then I can be with you."

That explanation did weird things to his chest that he decided not to explore too closely right this minute.

Because he was pretty sure it wasn't the heartburn he was trying to convince himself it was.

"I'm working today," he repeated, and Tokio rolled her eyes and leaned up on her elbows.

"Hajime, ruining your perfect attendance record will not cause the world to implode, I promise."

"Oi, I'm proud of that record."

"And he says Okita-san's a geek," she said dryly, and he glared at her. She pouted down at him. "Please?" The pout quickly became a grin. "I'll do that thing you like…."

"You do lots of things I like, and bribery won't work on me," Saitou replied.

She raised an eyebrow, still smiling, but it was more in challenge now.

"Really?" she inquired. "Bribery doesn't work on you?"

"No—now get off me please, or I'm going to very rudely remo—" The rest of the threat faded into a low groan when Tokio leaned over and caught his ear lobe between her teeth.

He hadn't realized how much he enjoyed that until she'd done it to him at Sada's, and he'd mentioned it to her during one of his more lucid drunk moments. So naturally, she did it every chance she got, because it made him squirm, and she told him it was fascinating to know he was capable of something so endearing. He knew that was complete bullshit and she only did it _because_ it made him squirm, and if he didn't enjoy it so much he might have been offended by that knowledge.

It took him several moments to realize she had his cell phone (she'd have made an excellent pickpocket, he'd learned), and it took several more moments for him to realize that this was probably not a good thing. He decided it definitely wasn't a good thing when he heard her cheerfully ask for Hijikata.

"What are you doing?" he asked, grimacing when she gently tugged on the ear lobe she was attacking—aw crap, she was pulling out the big guns.

"Nothin'," she said in that too-innocent voice that would have scared the crap out of him if he weren't so occupied with what she was doing to him.

"Who are you calling?"

"No one."

"Tokio—" He let out a strangled sound when she tugged a smidge harder than before.

_Damn it, this isn't fair_, he thought.

The only spot on her that produced the same response was this little patch on the side of her neck, and he couldn't get at it right now because she rolling his ear lobe between her teeth and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to make it through this one.

"Good morning Hijikata-san, this is Takagi Tokio," she cheerfully said, abruptly abandoning her attack. "I'm just calling you to let you know that Saitou Hajime won't be coming in today, as he woke up feeling unwell. Why yes—he's so sick I had to call for him. Of course sir—that's very understanding of you."

His brain was starting to work again, and though it took him a few seconds to realize what she was doing, what she was saying translated way faster, and he froze when he realized what exactly was going on.

"Tokio—!" he began furiously.

"Thanksgottago'bye!" Tokio blurted, abruptly ending the call and tossing the phone away before he could grab it from her and call his boss back. She watched him with wide eyes, smiling in obvious pleasure.

"I'd concentrate on not being so easily distracted if I were you," she said lightly, and he glared at her in reply. Her smile widened and she leaned down and rubbed her nose against his.

"You say nothing because you know I have a point," she said smugly.

"If you broke my phone," he began tightly, pissed because she was right and it was embarrassing that she'd been able to get what she wanted so easily.

She leaned up a little and looked around, then turned back to him with a grin.

"It's in my bra," she informed him, and he closed his eyes and laughed because that was really such a weird thing to say.

"All right Chiisai, you win this round," he conceded, and she sent him a smug look. "But," he said, abruptly rolling her onto her back, "now it's my turn to play."

He had no idea what it was about the woman that inspired goofiness in him, but he suspected it had a lot to do with her doing things like throwing his cell phone into her bra.

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They left his bed at ten, when he gave her rear end a friendly slap and said they'd been lazy long enough. She'd tried to wheedle five more minutes out of him without success, and only because he got out of bed before she could nibble on his ear lobe again.

She'd brought her robe from home and left it at his apartment a while back to use when she showered, and that was what she put on, because he was rather insistent in his demand that she not get dressed quite yet, and he let her wear the robe only because it was something really thin and slinky and he liked to see her in it. She informed him that this was still more proof that she was justified in calling him a letch, but the cons didn't even begin to outweigh the pros, so he couldn't complain.

She tied back her hair—he was very proud of the way he was able to restrain himself from laughing at the way her hair was sticking up—ordered him to sit down and began making breakfast, and he sat down at the table and watched because he knew a good thing when he saw it.

It was while she was watching the eggs that her cell phone went off, and she asked him (she ordered, actually, but Saitou preferred to pretend that that was because the eggs had most of her attention) to answer it. So he did and was relieved that it wasn't Kojuro:

"Merry Christmas kitten!" Kamatari shouted, and Saitou winced.

"Jesus," he muttered, and there was a pause on the other end.

"Oh, it's Saitou-san," Kamatari said cheerfully. "Merry Christmas Saitou-san!"

"Right," Saitou replied, still wincing vaguely; he had a feeling that after Tokio's shriek last night and this one just now, he was going to have to visit his ENT specialist really soon to make sure he wasn't going deaf.

Kamatari sighed.

"You have no concept of the idea of 'Christmas cheer', do you?" he asked in vague annoyance.

"None," Saitou affirmed, eyeing Tokio.

"Humbug," Kamatari muttered. Then he sighed and asked, "Well, was she surprised?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"She's wearing it now."

Another pause.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Saitou rolled his eyes.

"You think I would have answered her damn phone if we were doing anything ahou?" he snapped, and Kamatari tsked.

"Well if you keep growling at me I'm going to start to wonder," he said with an offended little sniff. "Put my kitten on—you're no fun."

Saitou snorted, then said to Tokio,

"Oi, Honjou wants to talk to you."

Tokio looked over at him, looked back at the eggs, then left them long enough to swipe the phone from him:

"Hi Kamatari-chan," she greeted cheerfully, turning back to the stove. She laughed. "Ah, Merry Christmas to you too. Making breakfast, why? …uh-huh. Uh-huh. I dunno, where—uh-huh. No, I know it. But like when?" Tokio glanced up at the clock on the stove. "Ten twenty-three. …I guess. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right, I will, 'bye."

"What was all that about?" Saitou asked when she set the phone on the counter.

"Kamatari invited us to brunch," Tokio said. "Some place in Shinjuku that Sada told me about."

"And you said no, right?" he asked, even though he knew what the answer was already.

Her smile dropped.

"I didn't think you'd mind," she began.

Saitou sighed wearily.

"Tokio," he said, and if he had been anyone else Tokio would have called it whining, "what the hell? I thought you called me in sick to spend the day with me."

"I do want to spend the day with you," she said.

He sent her a look that very clearly asked, "And exactly how does going to brunch with your friend accomplish that?"

"It's just for a little while," she said, tone placating.

"That's not the point, Tokio," he said exasperated. "Honjou annoys me."

"You let him," she pointed out, then smiled winningly when he glared at her.

"Oh come on," she cajoled.

"Well it's not like I have a choice now is it?" he muttered, and she sighed.

"Fine, I'll call him and tell him we aren't going."

"No you won't, because then it's my fault we didn't go," he said immediately. "And the hell I'm going to take blame for that."

"I'm not going to make you go if you don't want to," she returned, and he sent her a flat look.

"Yeah whatever," he said under his breath.

"We don't have to go," Tokio said. "Really."

"We're going."

"You don't want to, though."

"I also don't want to get into a fight about it later."

"Is that why we're fighting about it now?" she asked dryly.

"This is a discussion," he corrected.

"Fight."

"Discussion."

"_Fight_."

"_Discussion_."

"Fight to infinity, I win," Tokio said, and Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"What was that?" he asked finally.

"Me winning that fight."

He decided to just give up because if one of them didn't they be arguing over it all day, and it was a stupid argument to waste your time with, besides.

"We're going, damn it," he growled.

"But you don't want to go."

"Of course I want to go, I'm telling you I do, aren't I?"

She frowned at him.

"I'm not going to get mad at you or anything," she said. "If you don't want to go we don't have to—I just thought it'd be nice. And Kamatari's paying, so you wouldn't have to worry about it."

…Hm. Perhaps this brunch wouldn't be as painful as he'd first imagined.

He smiled at her.

"I'd love to go to brunch, Tokio," he said cheerfully, and she raised her eyebrows and seemed to decide to take his word on it.

So they ate eggs and toast, since that was all Tokio had gotten around to putting together before Kamatari had called, and put away the rest of the things she'd pulled out. They then got dressed and left the apartment, and once outside he used his new lighter to light up a cigarette.

"This is a great lighter," he said admiringly around the cigarette as he slid it back into his coat pocket.

Tokio smiled and leaned her head against his chest.

"I thought you'd like it."

"And how," he said, patting her rear end before sliding his hand into the back pocket. "What about you? Happy with yours?"

"Very," she assured. "Although I still can't believe you bought me such an expensive gift. Makes mine look a little cheap, you know."

"Well, you got me two," he reasoned. "It evens out." He then produced his pocket watch and flipped it open, then looked down at her with a wide grin. "And this pocket watch, I'm sure, is worth a shitload more than the diamonds."

She smiled in obvious delight of his appreciation.

They took the train to Shinjuku and Tokio led him to a Hong Kong-style dim sum place called Tokyo Daihanten that he'd heard Okita mention every once in a while as being pretty good. When he asked Tokio, she replied that Kamatari regularly had brunch there, and Kamatari was a real princess when it came to his food, so the place was definitely good. When they walked in, Tokio immediately began walking toward a table, which Saitou concluded to mean that she often joined the Queen when he took his brunches here.

They found Kamatari and another man seated at a table, deep in conversation. When Kamatari noticed their approach, though, he smiled and leapt up and yelled,

"Tokio-chan!"

Tokio grinned and detached herself from a reluctant Saitou's side:

"Kamatari-chan!" she called, hugging the man, and Saitou rolled his eyes and slid his hands into his pockets to wait for the greetings to wind down.

The man with Kamatari was his partner, as it turned out, a man named Yamada Daisuke of around Enishi's height and build (And that's where the molestation comes in, Saitou wryly decided), but considerably older than Enishi, and at least six years Kamatari's senior. He was soft-spoken and exceedingly polite, and Saitou decided the man was a saint to put up with Kamatari's crap.

That, or completely bat-shit insane.

Kamatari began grinning like the Cheshire cat when he saw Tokio's necklace.

"My my my," he crowed. "And where did _that_ come from?"

Tokio smiled and leaned her head on Saitou's shoulder, and Kamatari's grin widened.

"Well well kitten—looks like you made out like a bandit this year."

"It's so nice to see Saitou-san's spoiling you," Daisuke said with a faint smile.

"I'm thinking that should cover her until next Christmas," Saitou said, draping an arm around Tokio. "I like to end the year with a bang."

"And in debt," Kamatari said dryly, and Saitou glared at him.

Daisuke nudged Kamatari and sent him a look, and then Kamatari raised his eyebrows.

"I almost forgot—this is for you, kitten," Kamatari said, producing a very tastefully wrapped box.

"Oh, but I didn't bring yours with me," she protested.

"Open it," Kamatari demanded, and Tokio sighed and accepted the box, then held it out to Saitou, who sent her an exasperated look.

"Tokio…."

"Open it."

"It's your present, you crazy wench."

"Are we going to do this again?" she asked, and he rolled his eyes and took the box and opened her gift for her while she shut her eyes and waited for him to tell her to open her eyes and Kamatari and Daisuke laughed into their laps.

"Open," Saitou said, and Tokio opened her eyes and looked at the box and then let out a squeal and attacked Kamatari and Daisuke with hugs and kisses and proclamations that she loved them and they were the best.

Saitou failed to see why a flat iron should produce this response, but he knew far better than to try to figure it out.

It turned out that he only had to wait; Kamatari immediately began regaling them with the tale of how difficult it was to find this particular flat iron which Saitou gathered was special for some reason aside from the fact that it made one's hair a lot straighter than it had been previously. He also gathered that Tokio had had her eye on it for some time now, but had been unable to find it at a reasonable price.

He was then informed that the pair had gotten _him_ a present:

"What?" he asked warily, caught off guard and not liking that news in that least.

"A present," Kamatari repeated. "For you. From us. For Christmas."

"Kamatari-chan," Tokio said, tone vaguely censuring, and Kamatari let out a self-important little sniff.

"Feh," was his reply. He produced a bag and set it down in front of Saitou. "Before you decide to hate it on principle, Mr. Humbug, you should open it. I can guarantee you're going to enjoy it."

Terrifying didn't even begin to describe that advice.

With more than a little misgiving, Saitou removed the tissue paper and took out a tissue paper-wrapped square thing that hardly weighed anything and felt like clothing (oh gods), then ripped that open…and stared down at the red lace and satin babydoll now in his lap. It took him three seconds to realize the intent behind the gift:

"You're so putting this on the second we get back," he informed Tokio, who blushed to the roots of her hair and sent a laughing Kamatari a mortified look.

Daisuke tried and failed to suppress a smile.

"I tried to talk him out of it Tokio-chan," he said in apology, and Tokio sighed.

"Don't worry, I don't blame you," she muttered resignedly. "I know that he was born depraved."

"Oh stop, like you don't enjoy—"

"Ah ah ah," Daisuke said lightly, patting Kamatari's hand. "That's enough. You said you were going to be good."

Kamatari pouted at him, but sighed.

"Fine," he said resignedly.

Brunch wasn't as bad as Saitou had been envisioning. Daisuke kept Kamatari in line, with help from Tokio, and he was content to sit back and let the three of them take command of the conversation, speaking only when he was asked for his opinion. The food was also good, the best Hong Kong-style brunch he'd ever eaten, and he had to admit that Okita had, for a change, called this one dead-on.

Kamatari did indeed foot the bill, though Saitou did make the obligatory attempt at picking up the tab, and they said their good-byes outside the restaurant before he and Tokio strolled back toward Shinjuku Station, with their respective gifts in hand and Tokio tucked under his arm.

"So," Tokio said as they were getting to the station. "Your turn to pick what we're going to do next."

Saitou sent her a devious grin.

"Why Chiisai I already did," he said, and then continued in the pervert voice: "Or have you forgotten that I want to try out my Christmas present when we get back?"

The blush came back in full force, and Saitou decided he was very glad she had decided to call him in sick today, because Christmas was suddenly very fun again.

In a pervy, depraved kind of way, of course.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Tokio arrived home that night, Katsuko took one look at her daughter's face and knew her Christmas had been quite spectacular.

And if her face hadn't been enough of a sign, the very impressive piece of jewelry hanging around her neck would have been.

"Oh my," she said admiringly, inwardly surprised by the gift. "Where did you get that sweetheart?"

"Hajime," Tokio replied with a goofy sort of look on her face that had her mother smiling.

"Well," was all Katsuko could think to say. "So I suppose your Christmas went well?"

Tokio's smile widened.

"Best Christmas I've had since I was eleven," Tokio said with a sigh, and Katsuko put an arm around her daughter and squeezed.

"Good," she said, kissing Tokio's forehead. "I'm glad."

"How was Papa?"

"He behaved, thank the gods. Then again, the saké helped—I was thinking last night that maybe we should have gotten a few cups into him before Hajime-san came for dinner." Katsuko sighed. "Ah well, next time."

"Where is he now?"

"Nursing a hangover," Katsuko said with a smile. "He indulged rather a bit too much last night. The older your father gets the worse his hangovers get."

Tokio smiled sympathetically.

"Poor Papa," she said. She frowned and looked over at her mother. "But did you enjoy your Christmas, Mama?"

Katsuko's smile widened.

"If you got to enjoy your night with Hajime-san, I'm happy," she said, and Tokio blushed. "You did, didn't you?"

The blush deepened, but Tokio nodded, and Katsuko inclined her head.

"Then that's all that matters," she said. "Now, put your bag in your room and we'll eat dinner together, and you can tell me all about that beautiful present Hajime-san got you."

"Thank you Mama," Tokio murmured, hugging her mother tightly. "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't on my side."

"Oh sweetheart—_someone_ has to be the voice of reason in this family."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Previews of Chapter 29: Auld Lang Syne:_

"Oh holy shit."

At Okita's horrified statement, Saitou looked up and found his subordinates staring at him in amazement, and in Okita's specific case, dismay.

"What?" Saitou asked, a little defensively.

"I knew you were going to trigger the Apocalypse," Okita said, and Saitou sent him a flat look that told everyone that he thought his oldest friend was a complete moron.

---

Saitou smirked and produced his pocket watch, and the old man stared at it, obviously impressed and not shy about showing it.

"Well," he said finally. "If she got you _that_, she's a genius, boy."

---

"Surprise!"

Saitou took in the sight of Tokio carrying a box nearly as tall as her and decided that as far as understatements went, "Surprise" took first place.

---

"You bought me a key?" she asked puzzled, and he sighed wearily.

"Tokio, I'm trying to be really deep and profound here," he said, exasperated.


	29. Auld Lang Syne

**MERRY HAPPY NEW YEAR!**

So at least this time I'm closer to the actual post day. Makes me happy to be starting the new year off on sort of the right foot. Just a little housekeeping before we start:

I'm starting to catch up with people's reviews (I'm hoping to be done and caught up by Wednesday—knock on wood), but since the alert system is down (_again_) I have no idea when I will be getting PMs. So if you haven't heard from me, it's either because I never got your PM, or I haven't gotten to your review yet, not because I'm ignoring you or anything.

Also, I completely forgot to post the answer to the little quiz I gave you all for Chapter 23 (? I'm feeling too lazy to look it up…plus it's New Year's; that's not a totally legitimate excuse but whatever, let's pretend, 'kay?). The answer was _Sabrina_, for those interested, and several of you guessed right, which made me happy, because at least I'm not alone in my appreciation for Old Hollywood (which in my opinion is _so_ much better than the current one, but that's another argument for another day).

Lastly, last week's post was the last multi-chapter post for _Captain Mis_. Sorry—I know lots of you were enjoying not feeling the pain of tearing out your hair and going "But what happens next damn it!?!" at the end of the post, but they take a lot out of me. Plus, at the rate I was going, I'd have ended up getting off my schedule (can you say "Uber-dork"?) worse than I was already, and bad things would have happened. To my sanity. So yeah, no more multi-chapter posts. : (.

Anyway, that's all, I think. So Happy New Year, and I wish all of you all things good in the coming year. Enjoy!

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

oji: uncle. Usually attached to one of the honorifics, i.e., "-san".

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada (that I saw, anyway).

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Twenty-Nine: Auld Lang Syne**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Oh holy shit."

At Okita's horrified statement, Saitou looked up and found his subordinates staring at him in amazement, and in Okita's specific case, dismay.

"What?" Saitou asked, a little defensively.

"I knew you were going to trigger the Apocalypse," Okita said, and Saitou sent him a flat look that told everyone that he thought his oldest friend was a complete moron.

"What are you babbling about, nitwit?" he growled, exasperated.

"You lit your cigarette," Aoshi said in something like wonderment.

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"I had no idea that act could trigger the Apocalypse," he said dryly.

"You didn't use a match," Okita said. "You always use a match. _Always_. Since you started smoking."

"Ah—so _that's_ going to trigger the Apocalypse."

"When did you buy a lighter?" Okita demanded, stunned.

"I didn't," Saitou replied, and went back to his paperwork.

There was an expectant pause, and then Okita snapped,

"Well?"

Saitou glanced up and found his subordinates still watching him.

"You have work to do, you know," he reminded them, looking back down at his papers.

"Hajime!"

"Don't whine Okita-kun, it's undignified."

"Bastard."

"_Work_."

Okita knew better than to push the issue (at least for the moment), and went back to his paperwork mumbling uncharitably about Saitou under his breath, though he was never loud enough that Saitou heard all of it, so it was acceptable for Saitou to pretend he hadn't noticed. Kenshin and Aoshi eyed each other, then Saitou, then reluctantly went back to their own work, though they surreptitiously glanced at the lighter sitting innocently on Saitou's desk, next to the ash tray which was no longer overflowing quite so much as it had been in recent weeks.

It was quiet in the office for a long time, and then Okita threw down his pen and shouted,

"Where'd the damn lighter come from!?"

Saitou, in reply, threw a paperweight at Okita's head without so much as glancing up from what he was reading, and Okita ducked and barely missed what had promised to be a very impressive concussion.

"You were very close that time, sir," Aoshi noted mildly.

"Hm," Saitou grunted. "Aimed too high. I'll get him next time, though."

"Come on you bastard, where'd you get it?" Okita whined.

"Souji, do your paperwork," Saitou ordered with a touch of weariness in his voice.

"Tell me!"

"You either do what needs to be done or I hurl your ass out the window like you were a Frisbee," Saitou snapped in annoyance. "Which are you in the mood for?"

Okita ignored the threat and rubbed his chin, one eye closed, the other trained on Saitou thoughtfully. He eyed his friend in silence, then snapped his fingers.

"Ah-ha—your mom."

"Okita, I _will_ stab you with your pen."

"Oh not in here," Kenshin muttered, "you'll get it all over the papers again."

"Blood-spattered documents do look rather unprofessional," Aoshi agreed.

"Yeah, well, it suits the Wolf," Okita said absently. "Naw, it couldn't a been your mom—she's been tryin' a get ya to stop since you started. Your old man?" he tried.

"I have a letter opener shaped like a katana, Okita," Saitou reminded him.

"Take the letter opener from him," Kenshin muttered to Aoshi.

"I like my hands where they are," Aoshi murmured back. "And _how_ they are," he added after a second. "No extra holes or missing fingers."

Kenshin rolled his eyes.

"No," Okita decided, shaking his head, "the lighter's too classy-looking. Your old man woulda gotten you somethin'…well, _not_ as classy-lookin'. Your grandpa, right?"

"Did you know the Gatotsu works just as well with a letter opener as it does with a katana?" Saitou asked in a mild voice that didn't make any of the other three think for a minute he was just sharing some random fact.

Before Saitou was able to show Okita just how surprisingly well the Gatotsu worked with a letter opener, there came a knock on the door jamb of their shared office, and the four men looked to the doorway to find a young man with a box under one arm, watching them a little warily.

"Pardon me, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm looking for Assistant Inspector Saitou Hajime?" he asked.

"For?" Saitou asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I've been assigned to work under him."

Saitou leaned back in his seat and observed the boy top to bottom with a critical eye.

"From where?" he asked finally.

"Within criminal, sir," the young man replied, having obviously realized who he was speaking to.

"Twenty, right?" Okita asked suddenly, and the young man paused.

"I'm sorry?" he asked finally.

"You're twenty, right?"

"Twenty-one," the young man corrected, looking surprised.

Okita grinned widely.

"Aw, he's just a baby," he said cheerfully. "We've never had a baby before."

Aoshi raised an eyebrow and sent Okita a questioning look; he distinctly remembered being called "The Infant" when he'd first come to work with the other three men, and Okita still called him that on occasion, just to be obnoxious.

"You were way older than him when we got you Shinomori," Okita said, understanding the look.

"By a year," Aoshi replied, slightly incredulous.

"Ah, but the difference between ages is wide and profound, Grasshopper."

"It's _a year_."

Saitou rolled his eyes and Kenshin sighed and rubbed his temple.

"Name," Saitou snapped at the young man in the doorway, who immediately stood at attention.

"Nice reflexes," Aoshi commented.

"_Nerves_," Okita corrected. "He's got nice, agitated _nerves_."

"Mishima Eiichirou, sir." the young man said, bowing low.

"Fine, grab the empty desk," Saitou said. "Split the paperwork five ways," he ordered the others at large, already going through the stack on his desk to weed out the ones he really didn't need to be doing.

Within several minutes, Eiichirou was seated at the fifth desk in the office that usually served as the catch-all for everyone's papers and crap, using a pen borrowed from Kenshin to go through the forms the other men had (very quickly) shoved into his hands. Saitou had also immediately assigned Kenshin the task of helping Eiichirou acclimate to his new work environment, and that would take place later, once the paperwork was out of the way. Eiichirou's box sat on the floor by his new desk (which was still partially covered with crap) forgotten for now, and for a time the five men went about their business in silence.

Then:

"So where'd you get the lighter from?"

"Oh that's it," Saitou snapped, grabbing his letter opener.

Eiichirou watched in disbelief as his new boss whipped said letter opener through the air like a throwing knife, sending it spinning straight at Okita, who yelped and leapt out of the way.

"Missed by three inches," Aoshi informed Saitou.

Kenshin sighed and rubbed his temple a little more insistently, then remembered there was someone in the room who no doubt thought they'd all lost their minds. He looked over at Eiichirou to find the stunned young man watching Saitou incredulously—the Wolf was now looking for a new projectile and threatening to use Okita's skull as his new saké glass. He looked over at the redhead with the long-suffering expression.

"Sir…?" Eiichirou asked, eyes wide.

Kenshin sent him a pitying look:

"Welcome to the rest of your life, Eiichirou-kun."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saturday found Saitou visiting his parents and grandfather at his brother's.

His parents had been staying with his brother's family in their apartment for the last few months while their home had been undergoing a little renovation, and since Masu's father, Ichinohe Denpachi, lived with them, he'd come along as well. Saitou felt for his grandfather—Denpachi had lived his entire life in the country, but a severe case of arthritis had necessitated that he come to live with his only child, since he couldn't move around as well anymore. The old man hated Tokyo, and about the only thing that brought him any measure of happiness was his daughter's backyard. He took meticulous care of the backyard, and spent most of his time out there. He'd been building a bird feeder and bird bath until the renovation had started, and now that he was in a cramped apartment with his family, he'd been depressed and spent a lot of time in the park, feeding the birds in flagrant violation of the signs posted. He'd escaped being fined because Saitou had paid a visit to the ward precinct and mentioned that his grandfather was not to be screwed with, and he was to be allowed to feed as many freaking birds as he wanted, or they'd be dealing with Saitou Hajime beating the crap out of each and every one of them.

So after visiting with his parents and getting into the traditional wrestling match with his brother that he just barely won, and getting the traditional sparring with his psycho father out of the way, he went out in search of his grandfather, and found the old man sitting on a bench, leaning heavily against his cane and watching the birds. The birds scattered at Saitou's approach, and Denpachi looked annoyed until he saw who his visitor was.

"Hajime," he said, grinning in real delight.

"Grandpa," Saitou said, bobbing his head.

His grandfather patted the bench next to him, and Saitou sat.

"Wondering when you'd show up," Denpachi said, reaching into the bag beside him and tossing a handful of seeds onto the ground to coax the birds into coming back, which it did. "I suppose you saw your mother?"

"And the old man," Saitou said, nodding. "How you allowed Mom to marry him remains a complete and utter mystery to me, Grandpa—Dad's completely out of his mind."

His grandfather chuckled and leaned his chin on the hands stacked on top of his cane's handle.

"I liked your father when I first met him. He has a sense of humor. And I knew he'd take good care of your mother."

"You know he was a nut job too?" Saitou asked dryly, and his grandfather laughed.

"You're a lot like he was when I first met him."

Saitou shuddered.

"Oh please don't say that," he begged, horrified by the thought, and Denpachi laughed again.

"So I suppose we won't be seeing you on New Year's again?" Denpachi asked with a sigh, once he'd stopped laughing.

"We're always short men," Saitou said, which wasn't actually an answer, but sort of was.

Denpachi sighed.

"Too bad—once your father gets drunk I have no one to talk to," he said wistfully. "Your mother has to take care of him."

"Well," Saitou said, feeling like a bastard all of a sudden, "you guys'll still be staying with Hiroaki and his wife."

Denpachi snorted.

"I love my grandchildren, Hajime, but your brother lacks your charm. And I've never yet been able to have a conversation with his wife that lasted longer than ten minutes, not counting the frequent awkward pauses."

Saitou smirked wryly.

"So I'm charming, am I? I'll have to let Souji know that so he can stop talking crap."

Denpachi smiled faintly.

"Ah, Souji-kun—I miss that boy."

Saitou snorted.

"Yeah, 'cause _you_ don't work with him."

Denpachi's smile widened.

"Don't talk garbage, boy, I know you like working with him."

"He's a pain in the ass."

"So are you—it's why you two get along so well."

"Gee, thanks Grandpa," Saitou said sarcastically, rolling his eyes, and Denpachi laughed.

"So does your girl know you aren't going to be out celebrating with her?" Denpachi asked, and Saitou started.

"What?" he asked, staring at his grandfather in surprise, and the old man grinned widely at him.

"Your mother tells me everything, boy," he said smugly. "So when do we get to meet her, since you won't be visiting us New Year's Day?"

"Not sure," Saitou said finally, still surprised—he hadn't quite expected his mother to tell his grandfather about Tokio, even though he really should have been expecting it.

After all, nothing was sacred in his family.

And least of all someone's private affairs.

"Oh?" Denpachi frowned in disapproval. "Why's that?"

"Well I'd rather she meet everyone in phases," Saitou said dryly. "I don't think she could take on Dad and Hiroaki all at once."

"You know that's never going to happen, don't you?" Denpachi replied, one eyebrow raised.

"Where there's a will there's a way," Saitou returned. "And if the way happens to involve a lot of pain for either or both of them, so much the better."

Denpachi chuckled and shook his head.

"One day you'll figure out there's no outsmarting them," he said. "And when you do, your life will be much easier."

Saitou snorted:

"Feh."

"So what's this young lady like, that she's caught my favorite grandson's eye?" Denpachi asked, eyes narrowed. "Not another Yaso, I should hope?"

Saitou sighed—geez, a guy makes _one_ mistake….

"No, Tokio's more normal than Yaso was."

"So her name's Tokio?"

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't know her name?"

"Masu didn't mention it to me. Good family?"

Saitou barely managed to keep from snorting and saying, "Depends on your definition of 'good', Grandpa." Instead, he said,

"Yeah. Her dad's an inspector over in Nerima Ward, and her brother's in the same precinct. Kid's in traffic, though—dad's in security. Her mother's a nice woman. And her sister's another psychopath, but she's harmless enough."

"So you've met them already?"

Saitou pursed his lips.

"Yeah," he said cautiously.

"How'd it go?"

"Okay," Saitou lied, relieved for all the practice lying that he'd gotten as a spy, because he managed to sound convincing enough that he was also inclined to believe it, despite knowing—firsthand—that the opposite was true.

The pleased look on Denpachi's face almost made him feel guilty, though.

"Good," the old man said with a nod of approval. "You realize one of these days your mother's going to have them over, don't you?"

"She'll wait until she's met Tokio," Saitou said, secure in the knowledge that while his father may have been a whack job, his mother's head was screwed on a little tighter.

Denpachi grunted in agreement.

"Best not keep her waiting, though—she's liable to invite the girl over herself if you drag your feet Hajime."

Saitou nodded—his mother might have been slightly less insane than his father, but she was much more impatient than her husband.

"You never answered my question, boy," Denpachi said mildly.

"What question?"

"What sort of girl is this Tokio?"

Saitou pursed his lips.

Despite the fact that his family knew who Tokio was, he'd never actually gotten around to telling them about her. This was mostly due to the fact that before he got to that point, he could count on either his father or his brother or sometimes both of them to interrupt, saying something along the lines of "Oh our little Hajime's all grown up!" which of course necessitated an immediate kick to the face of whoever had said it, and that usually started a family brawl, and by the time it was over no one could quite remember how it had started. Consequently, while the family knew who Tokio was, they didn't know _who_ she was. So because he never got the opportunity to actually talk about her, he had no idea how to go about explaining her to his grandfather.

"Well…she's short," he said finally.

"Short?"

"Yeah—she barely reaches my shoulder when she's not in heels. And she's got these really big eyes too—she sorta reminds me of the anime characters." He decided not to mention his fascination with her legs or ass, since that was, you know, sort of private and not at all appropriate to share with his grandfather. "Got a temper too."

"Does she now?"

"Yeah. She's little but she's scrappy."

"What does she do for a living?"

"Right now, she's the acting director of the museum she works at, but usually she's Associate Director. Family business—her cousin's the guy owns the place. Kiyosato Akira."

Denpachi grunted; another pastime of his was reading the paper, so he knew pretty much everything that was going on anywhere and everywhere.

"What sort of superior is she?"

"Decent—her people like her a lot. Very loyal," he added, thinking of Enishi and Kamatari.

"Good," Denpachi said in approval. "You can tell a lot about a person by what his people think about him." Denpachi grinned. "Or her."

Saitou pulled out a cigarette and handed it to his grandfather, who accepted it with a nod, then pulled out one for himself. While his grandfather had never quite approved of his smoking habit, he was nevertheless happy to have someone to smoke with.

When he pulled out his lighter, Denpachi looked surprised.

"No more matches?" he asked.

"Nope—Tokio says I ought to join the rest of the world in the Modern Era," Saitou replied with a faint smirk.

Denpachi grinned.

"She get you that?"

"For Christmas," he affirmed, showing the front to his grandfather—the truth of the matter was that he was very proud of his lighter. Not only was it cool as hell, it was a lot more convenient than the matches he'd been using. Plus it drove Okita crazy since he couldn't figure out who'd given him the lighter, and Saitou refused to give his friend a hint.

And anything that drove Okita crazy was always a good thing.

"Very nice," Denpachi said admiringly, looking at the lighter. He looked up at his grandson and grinned. "She spoilin' you already?"

Saitou smirked and produced his pocket watch, and the old man stared at it, obviously impressed and not shy about showing it.

"Well," he said finally. "If she got you _that_, she's a genius, boy."

Saitou laughed.

"I don't know about a genius, Grandpa, but Tokio's a damn smart girl."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

New Year's Eve found Saitou alone in his apartment, reading Shinpachi's newest book.

The day had been very quiet. He'd worked the day shift and been home by four forty-five, in time to talk to Tokio, who'd called him and asked how he was going to spend his New Year's. He'd raised an eyebrow and asked if she really wanted him to go see her while she was around her father, and she'd laughed nervously and assured him it was pure curiosity that made her ask.

He wouldn't have minded going by to see her, actually, but he preferred to avoid the forced politeness that had become the norm between Kojuro and himself. Kojuro still in no way approved of Saitou seeing Tokio, but he'd been grinning and bearing the situation because it made Tokio happy to see her father making the effort to get along with the man she was seeing. Saitou didn't have any illusions as to the nature of Kojuro's sudden civility—the old man had told him himself that he was only doing it because it made his daughter happy.

Saitou was pretty sure the old man was hoping that Tokio would one day see Saitou as the delinquent Kojuro saw him as and drop him.

Saitou was equally sure that it would be a cold day in hell before Tokio was willing to do that.

He couldn't say exactly why he was so sure about that, and part of him thought that he was probably projecting his own wants onto her, but another part of him ordered him to stop talking (er, thinking) so much psychological bullshit, the woman was in for the long haul. She'd taken his past in stride, after all, and she'd already defended him once against her father, however unintentional that had been—Saitou had not missed the shock on her face when she'd piped up to correct her father at the restaurant. It was enough to give a man hope, though—that, and the way she'd promised to see him regardless of what her father had to say on the subject.

After hanging up with Tokio—he'd embarrassed the hell out of her by making several very inappropriate remarks that had her shushing him rather adamantly, because he knew her father was around and he wanted to fluster her in front of the old man just to be obnoxious—he'd had a shower and eaten dinner (instant soba), then watched the evening news. Nothing of what had occurred surprised him, as he'd heard it all already from Okita, who liked to listen to the radio and dutifully report every single thing that had happened in Japan to Saitou and his coworkers as it was reported. He then suffered through a call from his brother, who had apparently been in the mood to be a jerk-off. The only reason he didn't hang up on him was because he knew Hiroaki would just keep calling back until Saitou picked up again. He talked to his father for all of one minute before he was then connected with his mother, who expressed her deep disappointment that he wouldn't be with them for New Year's…_again_.

He talked to his niece, Yukiko, who asked him to come visit again soon with candy, please, because Hajime-oji always gave her the best candy, and also wished him a happy birthday even though it wasn't his birthday until tomorrow, because her mother had told her to. Saitou couldn't find it in him to feel disappointed. Yukiko was only seven, after all, and seven-year-olds didn't have too much interest in the doings of adults unless it involved them in some way. But she was a sweet kid, and he always remembered to get her candy when he visited, partly because she deserved it for having the father that she did, and partly because watching Hiroaki deal with Yukiko when she was riding a sugar high was one of the true pleasures in Saitou's life.

He again spoke with his grandfather, who again congratulated him on his pocket watch. Denpachi had been kind enough to refrain from telling the rest of the family who the pocket watch was from, because Saitou knew that if they ever found out he'd never hear the end of it, but he'd told them about the lighter. Luckily, his father and brother had been too impressed by it to tease him about it. His mother had thought it was an odd gift to give a man with whom one was involved, until Saitou had explained the meaning of the wolf to her. Masu had pursed her lips, still not looking quite comfortable with it.

"I suppose this means she doesn't mind your smoking?" she'd asked, resigned—it was the one thing about her youngest son she'd been itching to change since he'd started in high school.

"Nope," Saitou replied.

"Lemme guess," Hiroaki asked, smirking, "she can't smell or taste anything, right?"

"Go to hell, Aki," Saitou calmly replied.

After hanging up with is family, he'd settled down on the couch to read the rest of Shinpachi's book, pretty sure that if he wasn't interrupted, he'd be able to finish it before he turned in for the night. Which was what he was doing when someone started banging on his door.

Frowning, he checked the time and saw it was two minutes to midnight, and raised his eyebrows—damn. He'd thought it was earlier than that.

He marked his place, set the book aside and walked to the door, unlocked it, opened it…and found the last person he'd been expecting to see tonight grinning up at him.

"Surprise!"

Saitou took in the sight of Tokio carrying a box nearly as tall as her and decided that as far as understatements went, "Surprise" took first place.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, incredulous. "I thought you were going to be with your parents tonight."

"I was," Tokio replied cheerfully.

"So what happened?" he asked.

She cocked her head and sent him a mischievous look, eyes twinkling.

"Well," she began, "thirty-one years ago tonight, a baby was born who brought the new year in with him…."

Saitou started laughing.

"You're insane," he said, tugging her forward.

"Happy Birthday Hajime," she said, leaning up to kiss him.

And so it happened that as the old year became the new, Saitou Hajime found himself, not reading as he'd been planning on, but making out on his doorstep with his Chiisai.

He decided it beat the hell out of reading.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"You didn't let me give you your birthday present, you know," Tokio said a long while later, poking his stomach.

He grunted and opened one eye.

"Oh? You mean it wasn't you coming over here and us having sex? Because that's probably the best birthday present I've gotten ever, just so you know."

Tokio sighed and shook her head.

"Oink oink," she said dryly, and he closed his eye and grinned.

"Yeah," he agreed, and she laughed.

He heard sheets rustling and felt the bed moving and opened one eye again, in time to see her reach over and grab his shirt and pull it on.

"Oi," he grunted. "Where're you goin'?"

"To get you your birthday present," Tokio replied, flipping her hair out from under the collar and standing. "Wait a minute, I'll be back soon."

He declined to make comment, instead watching her pad out of the room, then yawned and closed his eye and got comfortable, deciding he might as well, because a minute was never just "a minute" with Tokio.

He heard her moving around in the kitchen and sort of idly wondered what in the hell she was doing, because he didn't remember exactly where they'd set aside the box she'd been carrying (which he assumed was his present), but he knew for damn sure it hadn't been in the kitchen, because that would have taken way too long, and they'd been in a hurry when they'd finally gotten into the apartment.

"What're you doing?" he called, only a little curious because he was getting his second wind and he aimed to take full advantage of her impromptu visit.

Saitou Hajime had been accused of being many things, but being stupid was not among them.

"Just getting something to drink," Tokio called back, just as he heard his microwave start to beep.

He frowned and opened both eyes now and turned his head to look out the doorway and into the apartment. He saw a corner of the box Tokio had arrived with sitting by the door—what the hell…?

"Then what the hell are you doing with the microwave?" he asked, sitting up and leaning his forearms against his knees.

"Getting something to drink," Tokio repeated, sounding amused.

"With the microwave?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yeah," she replied, and the microwave beeped again, telling him that whatever she'd stuck in there was done now.

A few moments later she breezed in with two glasses and a small ceramic pitcher, and something clicked in his head.

"That's the saké you brought over the other day," he said, and she grinned and leaned over the mattress to hand him a glass.

"Yup," she replied cheerfully. "Thank you for not opening it, by the way."

"Yeah, well, you said I'd have a lot more to worry about than you throwing shit at me, so I decided not to risk it," he replied as she poured the saké into his glass. It was warm, and he realized suddenly what she'd been doing. "You stuck it in the microwave," he said with a grin.

"A cold night like this one means warm saké," she returned, still smiling. "Set this over on the bedside table please," she added, giving both the ceramic pitcher and her glass a little shake each, and he obliged her.

"Now what?" he asked, taking a sip of his drink.

"Now you open your present," Tokio informed him, eyes twinkling again, and she flounced out of the room before he could drag her back into bed with him, because she was so fucking cute with her "I-just-got-nailed" hair and wearing his shirt and grinning at him like that.

She returned with the box, which she handed to him after he'd set his saké aside, then settled herself down on the bed next to him, sitting back on her heels and watching him like she was very pleased with herself about something.

The box was wrapped in very sedate paper, he was happy to see (she occasionally like to make him suffer by wearing something loud that made him wince until she took pity on him and changed), and there was a huge bow sitting on top of it.

"You do all this yourself?" he asked.

"Uh-huh," she said, nodding.

He was impressed—the bow looked professional.

"I had no idea you were so creative Chiisai," he remarked, taking the bow off carefully, because he was going to inspect it later.

She didn't reply, but her smile got just the tiniest bit smug.

He set the bow aside on his bedside table, next to his cell phone and pocket watch and pack of cigarettes and lighter, then ripped the paper off, to reveal a brown cardboard box. He saw the thick packing tape holding it shut and frowned.

"I got it," Tokio said, leaning forward and using her thumb nail to slice through the tape.

"Huh," Saitou said, watching her. "I guess it's a good thing the skin on my back's a lot thicker than tape."

"Oh be quiet," Tokio ordered, blushing. "Open your present you pervert, before I change my mind and decide to take it back."

"Indian giver," he taunted.

"Ahou," she taunted back, and he snorted in amusement, then flipped the box open, lifted back the paper and saw…a wooden box.

"Jesus, woman, you really wanted me to work for this didn't you?" he asked.

"Stop complaining," she replied, laughing a little. "Just open it."

"I'm trying to," he shot back, amused. "But every time I think I'm done I find another little obstacle."

"Jerk," she muttered, nudging his leg with her knee. "Open it."

He obliged her, sliding the top of the box off, and found a sheathed katana lying in the velvet lining inside the case.

His heart stopped.

Saitou didn't say anything for a very long time. He just stared down at the katana, unable to quite believe what he was seeing, and completely unable to think at all. Well, aside from the mantra "Holy fucking hells!" currently bouncing around the inside of his head.

Once his mind could work again, two thoughts occurred to him:

One—this was the most expensive gift he'd ever gotten, _ever_, from anyone, his parents included.

Two—when he was done with her, she'd be walking bowlegged for the rest of the week—possibly for the rest of her life.

"Wow," he croaked finally, and Tokio clasped her hands under her chin.

"You like it?" she asked excitedly.

"I…wow," he said finally, and she laughed and hugged him.

"Are you okay?" she asked, only half serious.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe more saké would help."

She kissed his cheek, then went to reach over for his glass. He gently grabbed hold of her arm, and she met his gaze, eyes questioning.

"Tokio, where'd you get this?" he asked.

She immediately smiled deviously.

"Oh, I have my ways," she assured him. Then her smile became a little shyer. "I had a lot of help though—Okita-san helped me pick one out for you."

"_Souji_ knows about this?" Saitou asked, surprised—no wonder the bastard had been sending him those smug, "I-know-something-you-don't-know!" looks all week!

"Uh-huh," she said, nodding. "And Hijikata-san helped me get a permit for you—it's in the box."

"The box?" he asked, shocked to hear his boss had been in on this too.

"Yeah. When I got it, I opened it to make sure it was okay, and before I taped it shut again, I slipped the permit in."

"Where'd you get it from?" he asked.

"Hiko-san," she replied with a grin. "He didn't want to sell it to me until I told him it was for you. Then he said it was okay, but only because you were the kind of swordsman who took care of his katana."

"How the hell would he know?" Saitou demanded, baffled; he hadn't even talked about katana with the older man in the whole hour and a half he'd been in Hiko's company, and while he'd taken off his gloves to eat lunch, Hiko would have had to have been watching him intently to see the calluses on Saitou's hands from his years practicing kenjutsu.

Tokio shrugged.

"Hiko-san's weird like that," she replied. "He knows all sorts of stuff that he shouldn't know. It's really creepy."

_Good gods she's been conspiring_, he thought.

"Good gods you've been conspiring," he said aloud, and she laughed again and hugged him. He smiled faintly, still a lot surprised, and put a hand against her back.

"Lucky for you, it was good conspiring," she said, kissing the side of his neck, and the impressive hickey he wouldn't notice until much later, when he was shaving.

"Scary thought, but true," he remarked, and she laughed again.

"Do you really like it?" she asked.

"Like it?" he repeated. "Hells woman, I love it. You're the first person to ever give me a _katana_ as a gift."

"I thought you'd like it," she said, nuzzling his shoulder. "Okita-san said you'd flip out, and I figured he'd tell me if I got you something you wouldn't like."

He rubbed a hand up and down her back and kissed her "I-just-got-nailed" hair.

"I was more worried about the pocket watch," she admitted. "I found it sort of last minute, so I didn't have enough time to ask Okita-san if you'd like it."

"Are you kidding me? I about had a heart attack when I saw it," he said, reaching down to pat her fanny. "Always wanted one, but I just never got around to getting one." He paused as a thought occurred. "Oi, you haven't been talking to my mother, have you Chiisai? 'Cause that's two presents in a row that you've nailed perfect, and I'm startin' to wonder."

Tokio smiled.

"I don't even know your parents' phone number," she said, poking his stomach.

"So you're saying that if you did you'd have called her?" Saitou asked, suddenly very glad she didn't know his parents' phone number; he shuddered at the thought of her meeting his family before he'd adequately prepared her for them.

"Maybe," she replied, tone mischievous. She kissed his neck again. "Happy Birthday."

"Woman, you're spoiling me," he informed her with a grin. "At this rate, you won't have a chance in hell of getting rid of me if you ever get tired of me."

"I doubt I'll ever get tired of you," Tokio informed him, and his grin turned smug.

"Well why do you think I said '_if_'?" he replied, and she groaned.

"There won't be any living with you now, will there?" she asked with a sigh, and he kissed her hard.

"Nope," he assured her and she rolled her eyes. "It's your own fault," he added mildly. "You aren't supposed to feed wild animals or they'll get used to it, or didn't you know that?"

"And you're a wild animal?" she dryly replied, one eyebrow raised.

"Wolf, babe," he said with an appropriately wolfish grin. "And I make the Big Bad Wolf look like a pussy."

"And you make Narcissus look humble," she added.

"Feh—he was another pussy," Saitou said with a sneer, and Tokio laughed. "Now," he began, sliding the box shut, "while the Wolf is very happy with his gift, Chiisai, he's in the mood for a different kind of gift from you."

"_Again_?" she asked, vaguely incredulous.

"It's my birthday," he said, sounding so much like a little kid that she laughed.

"What about the saké?"

"Hm. Well, I didn't know you could use saké like that, but whatever, I'm up for it," he replied, eyes glinting deviously, and she rolled her eyes.

"No you gigantic pervert—it'll get cold."

"Tokio, as far as I'm concerned, saké is saké. I'll drink it cold or warm or whatever. Right now, I'm a lot more interested in getting my shirt off of you."

He carefully set the box down on the floor next to the bed, then sat up and sent her an expectant look.

She sighed.

"All right—on two conditions," she added quickly when he reached over to "help" her out of his shirt.

"Which are?" he asked warily, not sure if he was going to like this.

"My turn on top," she said, blushing a little, and he laughed because as many times as they'd slept together already, you'd have thought she'd have gotten over her shyness with it.

"Okay, I can do that," he said, still grinning. "What's the other one?"

"I want to get up to see the sun rise," she said, and he cocked his head, frowning in faint puzzlement.

"The sun rise?" he asked, and she nodded.

"We never miss one," she said, obviously referring to the New Year's she'd spent with her family.

He shrugged.

"Don't worry about it," he said, reaching over and setting the alarm for a little before sun rise, then turned back to Tokio.

"See? I'm flexible," he said, and she smiled faintly.

"Uh-huh—when there's something in it for you," she agreed.

"Oh, low blow," he said with a mock wince. "However, I'd be more than willing to forgive you if you'd lose the shirt..."

And so saying he "helped" her do just that.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

As it turned out, Tokio just about killed him.

Then again, despite the fact that his obituary would have horrified his mother, he thought it would have been a pretty damn good way to go out.

Oh who was he kidding—it was a _great_ fuckin' way to go out.

He had instituted a new rule that stated that when she was here with him and was going to be around for more than a few hours, she was only allowed to wear one of two things—the babydoll or him. She had accused him of being depraved, and he'd shrugged and said it was either the babydoll or him and she ought to get used to it. To his delight, she usually ended up wearing him (wearing the babydoll seemed to embarrass the hell out of her for some reason he couldn't understand, because _gods_ she looked hot in it).

Currently, she was wearing the sheet, but that was an acceptable substitute for him, since he was out of commission right now, and they were drinking the now ice cold saké. He was sated and content and feeling warm and sleepy, and he thought he could probably have one more glass before he knocked out, when he remembered that he had something to give Tokio.

"Damn I forgot," he muttered, setting his glass on the bedside table and throwing the sheets off.

"Forgot what?" Tokio asked, then blushed dark red. "Hajime! Would you put on some pants for crying out loud!?"

"Like you aren't enjoying it," he taunted, and she grabbed his pillow and threw it at him.

He soon returned to the bed, pillow in tow, and told her to hold out her hand, palm up. Curious, she did as he ordered.

"So," he began, looking anywhere but at her, which she found decidedly odd, if he was reading her expression correctly from out of the corner of his eye. "I got to thinking, after Christmas, that it'd be…nice, if you were around a little more."

Tokio raised an eyebrow.

"I'm here almost all the time now," she said.

"Shut up I'm talking," he ordered with a glare, and she rolled her eyes and sighed, but waited expectantly for him to continue. He cleared his throat, looking ill at ease with all of her attention on him. "So…I…decided to…uh…oh fuck, just here."

And then he dropped a key into the palm of her hand.

She blinked and stared down at it, then looked up at him.

"You bought me a key?" she asked puzzled, and he sighed wearily.

"Tokio, I'm trying to be really deep and profound here," he said, exasperated.

"You are?" she asked, sounding dubious. "How is saying 'Oh fuck, just here' deep and profound?"

"You were staring at me!" he snapped.

"You're supposed to look at people when they talk to you," she returned, and he glared at her, so she changed the subject:

"What's the key for?"

"My apartment," he muttered, and she flinched, obviously startled.

"It is?" she asked after a moment.

"Why would I say it was if it wasn't?" he shot back, and she poked him hard in the stomach.

"Watch it pal," she warned, then went back to contemplating the key. She looked back up at him. "You made a copy for me?"

"It's my spare," he told her, both uncomfortable and vaguely pained—she really poked the crap out of him sometimes, and those nails didn't help.

Especially if she did it in the same place, as she usually did.

"I don't really need it, since I always have my keys on me when I leave. And I thought, you know, you could use it, if you ever wanted to crash here and I wasn't home yet. That way, you know, you wouldn't have to wait."

"You know?" she finished teasingly, and he sent her a dark look.

"Don't mock me woman," he warned.

She grinned, leaned over and kissed him soundly.

"You're so cute when you get all embarrassed and flustered," she said, rubbing her nose against his.

He immediately bristled:

"The hell I am!" he snapped, and she laughed and kissed him again.

"Thank you Hajime," she murmured against his mouth.

"You're welcome," he murmured back.

"Now it's time to go to sleep," she said, turning and setting the key down next to her jewelry.

"Yeah?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Hajime, you _cannot_ want to go again!" she said incredulously, turning back to look at him.

"Maybe," he said in a voice that told her the actual answer was yes.

"I know it's a mistake to tell you this, but I can't believe you."

He grinned roguishly.

"What can I say Chiisai—I just love a woman can make me yell."

She blushed, and shoved his head down onto his pillow.

"Pervert," she muttered. "Go to sleep."

He grabbed her and hauled her down next to him, then kissed her temple.

"Tomorrow morning then," he said, and she groaned.

"Oh gods," she said.

"No, 'Oh Hajime'," he corrected. "And that's not until tomorrow."

She couldn't help but laugh.

"You're such an ass," she said, still laughing.

"You love me like this," he said smugly, taking care to cover her with the sheets so she wouldn't catch a draft.

"Good-night Hajime," she said, half amused and half exasperated.

"'Night," he replied, kissing her temple again, and she reached up and grabbed hold of the arm across her chest and squeezed.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

He killed the alarm clock a few hours later with more vehemence than usual, because he had kind of a small headache behind his right eye and the obnoxious beeping was making it get worse.

So he waited a few minutes for it to go back to a dull throb that was easier to ignore, then got up and went looking for his jeans. He was only partially awake, but he was thinking okay, even if his body was about five steps behind his brain. So he found his jeans more or less quickly, yanked them on, then went back to the bed and shook Tokio awake. She nearly punched him in the nose trying to rub her eyes—he had gotten used to almost getting his lights knocked out by now so that he moved out of the way out of reflex—and after a little more coaxing, got her out of the nice warm bed and lent her one of his shirts, since they were thicker than any of hers, and plus, it was closer at hand. Then he grabbed his cigarettes and lighter and her hand and tugged her out onto the balcony to wait for sunrise.

She waited nearby for him to sit down, eyes half closed and yawning into her fist and shivering a little, and then he tugged her down into his lap and made her comfortable before he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

"It's cold," she murmured, snuggling against him.

"Sun's not out yet," he replied, absently rubbing her leg. "It'll get a little warmer once it does."

"Mm."

He glanced down.

"Oi, I thought you wanted to see the sun rise."

She bit the side of his neck lightly.

"Be nice," she muttered.

"Same goes for you," he said, giving her bottom a light, warning tap.

He nudged her awake when the sun began to chase the gloom of the false gray dawn away, and they watched the sky lighten, until everything was bathed in pale lemons and pinks. Then Tokio kissed the side of his neck.

"Happy New Year Hajime."

He kissed her forehead.

"Happy New Year Tokio." He crushed his cigarette out in the ash tray, grabbed the pack and lighter, then adjusted his hold on her and rose. "Back to bed, okay?"

"You're gonna come back too, right?" she asked, snuggling against him.

"Yeah," he said, fumbling the sliding door open and walking into the bedroom.

He set her down in the now cold sheets, went back to the sliding glass door and shut it, then returned to the bed, where she made room for him and then held out her arms. He obligingly allowed her to hug and snuggle him to her heart's content, and waited for her to fall asleep again before getting out of bed without waking her, to start getting ready for work.

It was when he was clipping his pocket watch to his belt that she opened sleepy eyes, saw him and how he was dressed, and then frowned.

"You have to work?" she asked, voice rusty, but he still heard her disappointment.

"Yeah—New Year's one of the days we're short people." he said.

"But I wanted to be with you today," she said.

Wow. She was _really_ good at making that heartburn-that-wasn't-really-heartburn-but-that-he-pretended-was start up.

"Well, you got me Christmas Day," he said mildly.

"But today's your birthday," she said crankily, and he smiled.

"Don't be greedy Chiisai," he chided. "Besides, you didn't tell me you were going to be coming over."

"It was supposed to be a surprise," she muttered, arms crossed over her chest.

His smile widened and he sat down and ruffled her hair.

"And it was," he assured her. "But I can't take days off unless you warn me in advance, Tokio. And Hijikata let me get away with Christmas Day because it's not too hard to find guys to fill in, but New Year's is a different story. And you're a fox and all, babe, but that just ain't enough compensation for getting my ass flayed."

She sent him a resentful look, then sighed and held out her arms. He smiled faintly, but leaned over and allowed her to hug him.

"What time are you getting out today?" she asked.

"I'll be out by four thirty," he said, "same as yesterday."

"I'll make you dinner then," she said.

"Yeah?" he asked with a grin.

"Yeah—I wanna try out my brand-new key."

He kissed her temple, grinning widely.

"Wha'cha gonna make me?"

"I suppose you'll find that out when you get here later, won't you?" she replied, and he snorted.

"Spoilsport," he muttered, and felt her grinning against his neck.

He let her be a few minutes more, because it made her happy and he enjoyed the attention, then said,

"Okay Chiisai, I need to get going."

"Five more minutes," she asked, and he was so glad he couldn't see her face because he knew that if he could, she'd be using the kicked-puppy look on him—the soft little "You're-hurting-my-feelings (and-don't-_you_-feel-like-a-colossal-ass-for-doing-it)" voice was bad enough.

"I have to leave now or I'll be late," he said, patting her arm. "Come on."

Her hold tightened slightly.

"Please?" she wheedled.

"Tokio…." he said, putting just enough menace in his voice to let her know he wasn't in the mood for her to pull one of her more childish stunts.

"_Please_?"

"All right, I warned you," he said, and latched onto the side of her neck.

"Hajime!" she shrieked, squirming. "Ow! Let go!"

Saitou didn't let up until he was sure he'd left behind a huge hickey that no amount of makeup would be able to hide, and when he let go of her he was quick to duck and dodge her fists.

"That hurt!" she shouted, throwing her pillow at him, and he sidestepped it.

"Consider it payback for the 'gift' you left on the side of my neck," he replied, one eyebrow raised.

She sent him a dark look, rubbing the hickey.

"It still hurt," she muttered.

"Well I _am_ sorry about that," he said sincerely. "Now be a good girl and say good-bye to Daddy."

"You're _not_ my daddy," she muttered.

He sent her a smug look:

"That right? Sure wasn't what you were saying last night."

She colored.

"Jerk," she mumbled, but leaned forward and kissed him good-bye…and then bit the hickey she'd given him last night.

"_Fuck_!" he bellowed.

"I believe this round goes to me," she said, one eyebrow raised.

"You think so?" he asked with a glint in his eyes that told her she was in trouble.

"You'll be late," she smugly reminded him, and that made him pause, and she watched him while he seriously considered going in late (or maybe not going in at all) so as to properly deal with the challenge she'd issued. In the end, though, he just wasn't willing to piss Hijikata off like that, so he only glowered at her and said,

"We'll finish this later."

She only smiled at him in something like satisfaction, and Saitou left her in his bed three minutes later, after grabbing his cigarettes and lighter and hat and coat, wallet and keys and getting into his shoes.

He was _really_ looking forward to getting off work tonight.

His phone went off as he was leaving his building, and he answered it, still shrugging into his coat:

"What?"

"Whoa, _you_ sure woke up on the wrong side of the bed," Hiroaki said, amused. "Down Wolf."

"Aki, what do you want?" Saitou asked wearily.

"Just to wish my favorite little brother a happy birthday," Hiroaki said mildly, and Saitou rolled his eyes.

"I'm your only little brother, ahou."

"That's why you're my favorite," Hiroaki cheerfully replied, and Saitou sighed, wondering why he did this every year, encouraged this man who should never be encouraged.

"Ya workin' today Haji?"

"Yeah," Saitou returned, cradling the phone against his shoulder as he buttoned up his black policeman's coat. "'S why I didn't go over last night. Well, that and, you know, you're all fucking lunatics. Mom and Grandpa're the only sort of normal ones in the bunch."

"My precious baby girl's not insane," Hiroaki said, offended on his daughter's behalf.

"She's a carrier," Saitou replied.

"Dickhead," Hiroaki muttered. "So," he said a moment later, having recovered from his snit, "how's thirty-one been so far?"

Saitou thought of the little woman he'd left behind in his apartment and grinned.

"A shitload better than thirty," he said.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Previews of Chapter 30: A Different Kind of Normalcy:_

"You're the best," Tokio said, beaming.

Hiko sniffed.

"And don't ever forget it Tokioko," he said, and smirked when she twitched and muttered "You colossal jerk" under her breath.

---

"You're an odd child."

There was a long pause. Then:

"Uhm…thanks?"

---

"Where'd you get the lighter?"

"Would you forget about the damn lighter already goddamn it!?!"

---

"But smashed bread isn't pretty," she replied.

"I'm not gonna take a picture of the damn thing, I'm gonna _eat_ it. The hell do I care if it's smashed?"


	30. A Different Kind of Normalcy

**So much for keeping a Resolution for a change.** Because of a merger between communications giants a while back, my Internet service was down for days, which prevented me from working on this chapter, because I am constantly checking my "facts" (coughcough) while I write so it doesn't take me for forever to "edit" (your cue to giggle like a school girl) the chapter later.

**I've been here before, haven't I?** Déjà-vu is a _tremendous_ bitch, I've decided. Pretty much a full two weeks ago, I was apologizing for a backed-up review reply list. Guess what? Nothing's changed. Between my Internet being down (except for excruciating fits and starts where I accomplished little, if anything) and whatever in the seven hells was wrong with the alert system at FF(dot)Net, my inbox is a nightmare (…_again_). I'm valiantly trying to get through the PMs and reviews. Some I may have replied to already, since waiting for the reviews to be delivered, like I usually do so I can reply that way and know who I've replied to and who I haven't (_Nerd_), was making me antsy and irritable. Of course, I no longer remember who I replied to and who I didn't, which is something of the fatal flaw in my little plan. Oh well; these things happen in life, I guess….

Also, I started my newest semester, and I don't know if it's because I've been there since Fall of '04 and I haven't "taken a break" once, or something else, but I find myself not really enamored of college anymore (which is not to say I was impressed with it to begin with, but it's never been this much of a drag to go back from a break before). I guess the honeymoon's over. So I'm feeling a little weird and off, and it affected my writing this chapter; I sort of felt like I had ADD, because concentrating on it for any decent amount of time seemed just about impossible. The fact that this chapter is the equivalent of "filler" didn't help either. _Sighs_ Well, in any case, I give you Chapter 30. I warn you, I was feeling snarky when I wrote most of this, so it may show.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Police officers and their fire arms: So in Japan, officers don't take their fire arms home with them the way cops in the U.S. do/are allowed to do. The gun stays at the office. And, incidentally, only guys who go out in the field are given weapons; the ones who stay in the precinct shuffling papers don't get one. Probably to keep them from shooting up the place when the red tape finally gets to them….

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Thirty: A Different Kind of Normalcy**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Hiko Seijuurou was used to accusations of being a hermit, because he pretty much was, and he'd never believed in calling a spade anything other than a spade, as the old saying went.

What he was not used to, and what continued to annoy him no matter how many times she did it, was Tokio's acting shocked that he'd ventured out into the world.

Like she was doing now, for example.

"Hiko-san!" She slapped a hand to the side of her face, fake astonishment written on her face. "It's a _miracle_!"

He sent her a flat look that did nothing to shut her up the way he'd sort of been hoping it would, despite knowing from past experience that it wasn't going to work.

"No—it's an _act of the gods_! Hiko Seijuurou the Hermit actually in a _city_, around other _human beings_! I'm shocked—_shocked_!"

"Oh would you shut up," he muttered, brushing by her and entering the conference room.

He walked to the table and set the box he'd had under his arm down on the table, then turned around and sent her an impatient look.

"Hurry up and get over here Tokioko—I have a schedule to keep to," he said, with a smirk.

Tokio twitched and sent him a nasty look, but shut the door all the same and walked over to the table.

"So let's see it Hiko-san," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, all professionalism now.

Hiko obligingly opened the cardboard box and took out the newspaper-wrapped object. He nudged the box aside, set the object down on the table and began carefully unwrapping it, revealing the Shinuchi, new and improved.

The new handle looked original—somehow or another, Hiko had managed to mimic the old one, so that unless one had seen the old one shatter, it was impossible to tell this handle was new. And when he unsheathed the sakabatou and showed her the blade, she saw that it had been almost completely restored. The edge was still nicked, but most of the damage had been taken care of, and the Shinuchi looked a hell of a lot better than it had when Hiko had gotten it.

"You're the best," Tokio said, beaming.

Hiko sniffed.

"And don't ever forget it Tokioko," he said, and smirked when she twitched and muttered "You colossal jerk" under her breath.

"Well don't take it out on _me_," he said mildly. "_I'm_ not the one who named you."

"And for _that_ blessing, I'm forever thankful," Tokio muttered, eyeing him. "The gods only know what name _you'd_ have saddled me with."

Hiko sniffed, feigning hurt.

"Hmph—now that's an unfair assessment," he said. "I gave my baka deshi a more than acceptable name, not that he's done a damn thing with it."

Tokio raised an eyebrow.

"Bitter are we?" she asked dryly.

"Hiko Seijuurou is not _bitter_, thank you very much," Hiko replied snootily, and Tokio laughed.

Despite some of Hiko's less endearing qualities (like his insistence on calling her "Tokioko"—not even informing him that he sounded like her father could get him to quit it), Tokio really was happy to see the crank. Hiko went out of his way to make her life a little more difficult because he could, and he made no apologies for it, but he also made it enjoyable, so Tokio couldn't find it in herself to get really mad at him.

Besides, as much grief as he gave her, he was still one of the few men in the business that treated her as an equal, or at the very least acknowledged that she was competent. Add to that the fact that he was something of a celebrity for both his work and his temper, and if Tokio were anyone else, she'd consider it an honor that Hiko took the time to annoy her the way he did.

Happily for her, she was not easily impressed.

Hiko left soon after, to discuss the terms of his payment with Enishi (Tokio laughed a little deviously; she _loved_ foisting Hiko off on Enishi, because Hiko always got the _best_ reactions out of Enishi), and Tokio carefully slid the Shinuchi back into its scabbard and then wrapped it up again in its newspaper before slipping it back into the box.

She was thrilled to have the Shinuchi back, and even happier that Hiko had been able to get it looking so lovely. Now that it was back, of course, she was going to have to tell Akira and Tomoe about it, and she was going to have to talk to legal again and see if they'd either found any loopholes or made any progress in the museum's favor, neither of which she was particularly thrilled over. Unless legal had good news for her. Then telling Akira and Tomoe about the Shinuchi would be great. Otherwise, it would be her sad duty to get their hopes up only to ruthlessly shoot them down, and Tokio hadn't known Saitou long enough to take any pleasure in that particular pastime.

She grinned to herself at the thought of the Wolf. It had been two weeks since he'd given her the key, and she'd been using it as much as possible. She had gotten into the habit of attempting to wait up for him on those nights that he worked the night shift, but Tokio had never been a night owl (_or_ an early bird, strangely, but that was another story), and it was hard for her to stay up until he got back. So what invariably ended up happening was that he'd arrive home to find her asleep on the couch with the TV on, either because she'd fallen asleep watching one of the movies from his collection or because she'd fallen asleep watching some program or another. More rare was for him to find her asleep with one of Shinpachi's books beside her—reading laying down always put her to sleep, which defeated the purpose of doing something so that she wouldn't fall asleep waiting up for him, so she hardly ever tried it.

Tonight was one of those nights, and she was determined to stay awake, because Saitou was always teasing her about it and she aimed to prove to the smug jerk that she could too stay up, damn it. She'd also have to call home and tell her mother she was staying at Sada's. Her mother, of course, knew exactly where her daughter was actually staying, but as long as Tokio told her she was staying with Sada, Katsuko would not technically be lying when she relayed that message to Kojuro. Saitou, of course, told her she was deluding herself. They'd gotten into several arguments about that. Part of it, Tokio knew, was because Saitou had a tendency to see things in blacks and whites, and whatever didn't fit in either category simply didn't exist as far as he was concerned, which she had informed him was a terribly narrow outlook on life. To which he would reply that that didn't change the fact that she was lying to her father by proxy and worse, her mother was her proxy.

Another part of it, she thought, had to do with her lying to her father in the first place. Kojuro was by no means off Saitou's shit list, nor had the old man done anything to get himself off said list, but Saitou was, at his core, an honorable person, and it offended his sense of honor that she was lying about staying over at his apartment. She would have found it far more endearing if he didn't harp on it so much.

It wasn't like she liked lying by proxy, but Tokio knew her father way better than Saitou did, and from her standpoint, unless relations between Kojuro and Saitou magically got better, this was her only option (and in Tokio's opinion, there was a better chance of world hunger being eliminated). Kojuro tolerated Sada's presence in Tokio's life because it made her happy. He didn't like it, but as far as her father could tell, Tokio had not suffered for the worse, so he couldn't say anything otherwise. Tokio also thought her father held out the faint hope that continued contact with Tokio might make Sada see things Kojuro's way.

What her father failed to realize was that Sada was happy with her life and the choices she'd made to bring herself to where she was.

A bellow from the direction of Enishi's office, delivered in a tone and manner particular to her white haired coworker, made Tokio grin widely. She picked up the box and left the conference room with it under her arm, headed for Enishi's office.

"Enishi vs. Hiko" was never a battle to be missed.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Saitou's day had not been especially good, but it hadn't sucked too bad either, so he was leaning towards calling it a sort of halfway success.

He was working the night shift tonight, which sucked, because there was something about nights that just magnified Okita's annoyance factor by a thousand—on particularly bad nights, it was magnified by a couple thousand. Himura always did a pretty good job of keeping Saitou from making good on his many threats against Okita's life and limbs, but Himura also had the unfortunate side effect of irritating Saitou just as much as Okita. There were nights when Himura was a "-dono" away from a Gatotsu to the head. Luckily, though, Shinomori was around to even things out and diffuse. Saitou always gave the younger man some grief, but secretly he was glad to have him around—if not for him, Saitou would have been charged with two counts of premeditated murder years ago.

The addition of the newest member, Mishima, threw the balance out a little, but since the balance was now in Saitou's favor, he didn't give a damn. He was glad Hijikata had tossed the kid his way, too, though he'd had his doubts about the young man's ability to cope.

Saitou was aware of his reputation as a hard-ass. He was also aware that around the office, it was considered punishment of the highest form to be sent to the Wolf of Bunkyo Ward's team. And he didn't care. It kept the pansies away. Himura might have been a bleeding heart but he had a thick hide, and he could take Saitou's rebukes without batting an eyelid. Shinomori was the same way. And Okita…well, Okita had known Saitou since childhood, so he'd had to deal with Saitou longer than anyone else.

But Mishima had been appalled the first time Saitou had told him to either grow a pair or transfer somewhere where they'd hold his hand, because nobody got babied here. The kid had flinched and paled, then swallowed and bowed his head and quietly assured Saitou that he didn't want to transfer out and it was an honor to work with him—

"Don't blow smoke up my ass," Saitou interrupted.

Mishima looked up, startled.

"Sir?"

"I dunno how they did things where you worked before, but here, you do what you're told, when you're told, and you keep doin' things that way until I decide you can think for yourself. Now get your shit together and do what I told you to do."

He suspected Himura might have offered the kid some advice, because the next day Mishima didn't flinch at all when Saitou gave him hell for something or another (he forgot now what it was), and the kid appeared to have figured out that as long as he did what the Wolf wanted done, he need not fear losing a hunk of his ass.

Or more, for that matter.

Saitou checked his pocket watch as he left his building, even though he knew he was fine as far as time went. He just liked pulling his pocket watch out and looking at it. As he was tucking it back into his pocket, he saw one of the elderly women who lived in his building coming up the walk with her arms heavy with groceries. Upon seeing who the woman was, Saitou rolled his eyes and sighed, then resigned himself to being maybe two minutes late today, because the old woman was Seta Nanao, and Tokio was friendly with her.

Saitou had lived in his building for six years and he'd never once had any sort of contact with any of his neighbors outside of a nod of acknowledgment or, if feeling particularly cheerful, a grunt meant to be translated as "Good morning/afternoon/whatever." But since Tokio had become something of a permanent fixture in his apartment, she'd struck up several friendships with some of the elderly tenants, and now Saitou couldn't get out of his building without being stopped by at least three of them (_every day_) so that they could tell him what a _nice_ girl that Tokio-san was, and how _pleased_ they were that she was living with him now, though he should probably see about making it legal _very soon_, since it was such a _shame_ to take advantage of such a _wonderful_ young lady.

Nanao-san, thankfully, didn't do that to him. What she did was much worse: every time she saw him, she'd smile and call out "Good day Saitou-san," and because he didn't want to catch hell from Tokio later for ignoring her friend, he had to answer back.

In short, she _made_ him act nice to her.

Not that he wouldn't have treated her well if Tokio weren't around (his mother would kill him), but because she was friendly with Tokio he had to be nicer to her than he might normally be. So now, instead of absently waving and grunting a pseudo-reply when she called out to him, he had to actually string words together into a coherent and appropriately polite reply.

And once he did something like that, he had to do other things for her, like help her take her groceries up to her tenth floor apartment, because if he didn't Tokio would hear about it sooner or later (though he doubted it'd be from Nanao-san; a likelier scenario would be that another of the old busybody biddies would see and rat him out), and of all the old people Tokio had befriended she was especially fond of Nanao-san.

Saitou sighed; and to think, he'd actually liked the idea of moving into a building with such a large elderly population, because it meant no snot-nosed children to annoy him.

"Good afternoon Saitou-san," Nanao said upon reaching the building's entrance. She smiled sweetly up at him, and Saitou felt uncomfortably like a bastard for having been irritated with her, however vaguely.

"Nanao-san," he replied.

"How is Tokio-san?" Nanao asked. "I didn't see her this morning."

"She's fine, she stayed with her parents last night," he replied, taking her bags from her.

"Oh you don't have to do that," she said, her smile widening.

"I don't mind," he returned, and hoped that the lightening bolt with his name on it would wait until he'd taken her groceries up for her before striking him down. "Tenth floor, right?"

"But weren't you leaving to start your shift, young man?"

It was weird the way old people insisted on calling him "young man", or odder-sounding still, "son"—his own _father_ didn't even call him "son".

"I've got some time," he assured, managing to open the door despite having his hands full. He gestured for her to go in first. "Lead the way."

Nanao gave up and walked in, and Saitou walked in after her. Being as she was claustrophobic, they bypassed the elevator and used the stairs, and Saitou wondered, not for the first time, how that little old lady made it up ten flights of stairs weighted down with groceries without having a stroke.

"So you said Tokio-san stayed with her parents last night?" she asked, her voice echoing in the stairwell.

"Yeah," he replied, shifting his hold on the bags; he was pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate his letting her vegetables meet untimely ends on the third floor landing, not that she'd utter a word of rebuke.

"Are her parents ill? She mentioned her mother has high blood pressure."

Saitou raised an eyebrow; he hadn't known Katsuko had that. He then wondered how she was able to live with a man who no doubt contributed to her condition on a daily basis.

"As far as I'm aware, they're fine." he replied.

"Good," Nanao cheerfully returned. "Such a sweet girl. Terrible if something should happen to her parents. But I suppose she's lucky she has someone to share the burden with—gods forbid, of course."

She sent him a pleased look over her shoulder that told him who she was referring to; somehow he was able to keep from tripping.

They finally reached the tenth floor, and he fumbled the door open for her again, then followed her to her apartment and waited in semi-impatience for her to get the door open, though he of course vehemently denied being at all put out by having to wait when she began to apologize.

As soon as the door swung open, Nanao and Saitou were greeted by a dog.

"Hello Tsukiko," Nanao cheerfully greeted, leaning over to pet the dog, a brindle-colored Akita. "And say hello to Saitou-san."

"Yeah, right, hi Dog," Saitou said, following the older woman in and shutting the door with his foot so the dog wouldn't get out.

He set Nanao's groceries on her counter, taking care to make sure they weren't in danger of falling, then turned back to the elderly woman to take his leave. But fate hated him and he really needed to accept that fact. Because Nanao's grandson Soujiro arrived just then, and Saitou was then subjected to a barrage of questions about Tokio from the sixteen-year-old.

And he couldn't brush the kid off because Tokio had befriended him too (he suspected she had done this only because she'd somehow known it would irritate him to no end). But at least the kid wasn't crushing on her.

He _thought_….

Finally, Nanao gently informed her grandson that if they kept Saitou-san any longer, the good Inspector would be late (which was wrong—he wouldn't _be_ late because he already _was_ late, by ten minutes).

Five minutes later (which put him at fifteen minutes late, which meant Hijikata was going flay his ass _good_ today), he bid Nanao, Soujiro and even the dog (eh, why not—he'd sort of said hello, right?) good-bye and finally left. And because it was pretty much assured Hijikata was going to blow a fuse anyway, Saitou made no attempt to walk to work any faster than he usually did, because being twenty-five minutes late, rather than thirty-five, wasn't going to do him a damn bit of good—as far as his chief was concerned, late was late.

He was waiting for the crosswalk light to change when he heard someone shouting his name and looked around to see Nanao's grandson scrambling down the street, waving one arm frantically.

So of course his first thought was that the old lady'd finally had that stroke.

"What?" he snapped once the kid made it to his side.

Soujiro leaned over and caught his breath, panting harshly for several minutes, then popped back up again, wearing his usual cheerful grin that Saitou privately thought made him look like he'd gotten work done from the same quack who'd done up the Joker.

"This is for Tokio-san," he said, holding out a plastic bag.

Saitou raised an eyebrow, then took the bag, opened it and found…manga. He looked up at Soujiro and sent him a flat look.

"You ran after me for three blocks to give me manga?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice level.

"Yes sir," Soujiro replied, nodding.

Saitou watched him, unable to hide all of his disbelief; the light finally changed, and people began crossing back and forth. At long last, he said,

"You're an odd child."

There was a long pause. Then:

"Uhm…thanks?"

Saitou rolled his eyes.

"Go home," he said tiredly, rubbing his temple.

"Yes sir Saitou-san," Soujiro cheerfully returned. "Have a nice day."

"Yeah right," Saitou muttered with a snort as he turned around and began crossing the street; he had maybe half a second before the light would change and he'd become an object of loathing for all the insane drivers waiting. Sometimes, if he was feeling particularly perverse, he purposely stalled and didn't cross until a couple seconds before the light changed, just to piss people off. So far, no one had tried to run him over, but he was waiting for the day when someone did—the asshole was gonna have one hell of a fender bender if Saitou had anything to say about it.

He arrived for work an astonishing forty-five minutes late, and when he walked in, Aoshi—who had been on the phone—looked relieved and hung up.

"Holy hells, sir, we thought something had happened to you," he said.

"Something did," Saitou muttered, annoyed.

"What?" Eiichirou asked.

"I was born."

"Ah," Aoshi said, nodding. "It's like that."

"Where's Himura?" Saitou asked as he shrugged out of his coat.

"Trying to calm down Hijikata-san," Eiichirou replied.

"The chief's pissed," Aoshi informed Saitou. "His exact words were, and I quote, 'That asshole Wolf better be fucking dead or I'll kill him myself'."

Saitou rolled his eyes.

"Great," he muttered, tossing his coat over the back of his chair. "Where's Okita?"

"I believe he's staked out in the restroom," Aoshi said. "Something about waiting for the bloodshed to blow over."

"Feh—pussy," Saitou growled, going into his desk drawer and pulling out his semi-automatic. He set it down on his desk top, and Aoshi raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't that a little excessive, sir?" he asked mildly.

"I'm not gonna use it on Hijikata," Saitou returned irritably. "You think I have a death wish? He's like a wild animal—if you don't kill him outright you'll just piss him off worse."

"Sounds like you, sir," Aoshi said dryly.

"He's from my tribe, we speak the same language," Saitou retorted. "Divvy up the paperwork and start on it so we can get that shit over with quick and start in on the important things."

"Yes sir," Aoshi and Eiichirou said in unison, and Saitou sighed wearily and left the office, heading for Hijikata's, and not looking forward to the next half hour.

Just as Saitou knew would happen, Hijikata lit into him. What's worse, he did not let Kenshin leave the room, so Saitou also had an audience present to watch his ass get chewed out.

Oh goodie.

Thirty minutes later, Saitou and Kenshin left the office.

"This one might be deaf now," Kenshin said, whittling away at one of his ears, a pained expression on his face.

"At least your dignity's intact," Saitou muttered, glaring at the room at large, daring anyone to say a word.

Unfortunately for him, no one was feeling suicidal enough to take the challenge.

"We were taking bets on how you'd died," Kenshin informed him helpfully. "You've never been so late before, so we were reasonably sure you'd died. We were about to draw straws over who was going to tell Tokio-dono when Hijikata realized how late you were and began yelling."

Saitou sent Kenshin a nasty look.

"You're all assholes," he said to the redhead, who shrugged.

"You knew that," Kenshin replied, and it took an excruciating amount of will power for Saitou to not punch him in the face.

"Go drag Okita's ass out of the restroom," Saitou said, instead of flattening Kenshin's nose, "or I'll do it."

Kenshin sighed wearily.

"Right," he murmured, turning and walking down the way. Saitou watched him for a second, to make sure he was headed where he was supposed to be headed, then began back for the office. To his relief, Aoshi and Eiichirou were just finishing up their paperwork. Both men looked up when he stalked in and watched him throw himself into his chair.

"So how'd it go?" Aoshi asked conversationally.

"I've got no skin on my ass," Saitou replied.

"Oh, the usual then," Aoshi remarked, going back to his work.

Saitou made a face but said nothing in reply, and Eiichirou wisely went back to his own paperwork, lest he draw his cranky boss' attention.

Saitou dug through his coat pockets for his lighter and pack of cigarettes, found them and tossed both onto his desk, then draped his coat over the back of his chair correctly, since he'd been haphazard about it earlier. In his defense, however, he'd had a pressing appointment with his very pissed off chief, and taking the time to properly drape his coat over the back of his chair and making said pissed off chief wait any longer was a really stupid idea. Especially since Hijikata spoke Saitou's language, and their language happened to be what Tokio liked to call "Neanderthal".

His coat no longer in danger of being very unprofessionally wrinkled, he then turned around and picked up his pack of cigarettes and plucked out a new one, tossed the pack on the desk again and picked up his wicked cool lighter and lit it. He took a deep drag, exhaled the smoke through his nostrils and decided he was ready to shuffle papers for a little while.

And then Okita and Kenshin arrived.

"Wow, Hijikata-san didn't kill you," Okita cheerfully said in lieu of greeting.

"Eat shit and die," was Saitou's snarled response.

"So it went well?" Okita prodded, grinning at Saitou in a way that told the room at large that he was having fun teasing the wild animal in their midst.

"Do your work, asshole," Saitou barked at Okita, who sent him an offended look but went to his desk and sat; Kenshin had already taken his own seat and was studiously avoiding the situation.

For now, anyway.

The five men worked in silence for a time, and then Okita asked,

"Where'd you get the lighter?"

"Would you forget about the damn lighter already goddamn it!?!"

…All signs pointed to tonight being very long for everyone involved.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Seven excruciating hours, three airborne paperweights and one cracked telephone later, Saitou was walking down the hall of his floor, still feeling cranky and wanting to kill shit.

It was times like these that he longed for his days in the department, where no one ever passed up an opportunity to beat the ever-loving crap out of a fellow operative. Nowadays, it was a lot harder to get a good, really satisfying fight started, because the only people still around who could give him a good fight were Kenshin and Okita, and Kenshin avoided getting drawn into one at all costs while Okita refused to rise to the bait (and Saitou knew Okita did it to purposely piss him off, because the little shit had told him so once).

Muttering some truly obscene epithets under his breath against both men, he reached his apartment, pulled out his keys and unlocked his door and tossed it open. He immediately noticed that the TV was on in the living room, and knew Tokio was here, which cheered him up slightly. It was nice when she warned him beforehand that she was going to come over, but he secretly liked it better when she surprised him.

He set his wallet, badge and keys on the key rack by the door, took off his gloves and tossed them there too, then got out of his shoes and set them in the rack. He left the entry, taking off his hat as he went, and walked over to the living room, knowing she was going to be knocked out on the couch, because that's what always happened when she attempted to wait up for him on nights that he worked the night shift. Sure enough, when he reached the doorway and looked in, he found her lying down on the couch, on her stomach, out cold. She also appeared to be wearing the shirt of his that had sort of kind of become her night shirt. He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and watched her with a grin, then grinned wider when he realized she was snoring.

_I'm giving her so much crap about that tomorrow_, he decided, levering up off the doorjamb and heading for his bedroom to get out of his uniform.

Twenty minutes later, wearing the pair of old sweatpants she hated (which meant he wore them around her whenever possible), he sauntered back into the living room. She was still asleep, and still snoring, and the snoring made him smirk evilly.

_**So** much crap_, he thought.

The TV was on mute, he supposed, because it was rare for her to turn down the volume that much, unless she'd fallen asleep on the remote (she'd done that a couple of times). This time, though, the remote was safely on the floor, probably having fallen to the carpet, since he doubted she'd set it down on the floor upside down on purpose. He picked it up, set it down on the end table that his mother had insisted he buy when he'd moved into the place, then sat down on the couch next to her and gently shook her.

"Oi, Chiisai," he said. "Wake up. You fell asleep on the couch again."

She murmured something he didn't quite catch and sleepily opened her eyes halfway.

"Don't call me that," she muttered. "And welcome home."

He smirked faintly at her disgruntled tone; it was rare, but every once in a while, she'd put up a sort of token protest against his calling her "Chiisai".

"You left the TV on again," he said.

She sighed and rubbed at her eyes clumsily, then shifted so she was on her back now.

"I was waiting up for you."

She always said that, and it always threw him for a moment, and made that weird heartburn start up.

Probably ought to get that checked out….

"Well, you certainly accomplished that beautifully," he finally replied, as was his custom. It was really childish, but it was also about the only way for him to regain any sense of control over the situation. Which sucked because he felt like a total moron for reverting to something so elementary when he was supposed to be an adult, but it worked.

"Don't be obnoxious, Hajime," she sleepily ordered, holding out her arms.

He obligingly leaned over and let her wrap her arms around his neck and tug him down. She kissed him and rubbed her nose against his.

"How was it?" she asked,

He shrugged.

"More or less tolerable. Souji's still alive, so I suppose it was okay."

She smiled and rolled her eyes.

"Good. Are you hungry?"

"Depends—are you referring to food or you?"

The smile widened.

"Food, Hajime."

"In that case, no, I ate before I got here."

"Soba?"

He snorted.

"What else?"

"Touché."

He turned his face and nuzzled her neck.

"You smell like laundry," he murmured, and she laughed.

"You always say that."

"Well it's true," he returned, lifting his head to meet her gaze.

"You're so weird," she said with a sigh.

He smirked.

"I'm weird, huh?" he asked dryly, shifting his hold on her so he could pick her up and settle her in his lap. He leaned back and got comfortable on the couch, knowing she'd insist on staying up with him for a little while longer even though both of them ought to get to sleep.

"Yes," she replied, snuggling against him.

"You're not exactly normal yourself, Tokio," he said mildly, rubbing a hand up and down one of her legs.

"Duh—why do you think I'm with you?"

He sighed.

"You just love to hit below the below the belt, huh?"

"No one ever won anything by playing nice," she said in a very matter-of-fact voice, and Saitou snorted in amusement.

"And people wonder why we get along so well," he said, smirking.

She only smiled and kissed the side of his neck, then settled her head back down on his shoulder, and they watched the silently flickering TV for several moments in silence.

"You're watching an infomercial?" he asked finally.

"No, I was watching…not-an-infomercial," she returned slowly, and he rolled his eyes, reached over and picked up the remote from the end table, squinted at it, then found and pressed the mute button.

"—is a beautiful set of stainless steel knives! Made right here in Japan, they're on par with the knives used by professional chefs in the finest restaurants across the country!"

"Jesus, no wonder you had it on mute," Saitou muttered, quickly lowering the volume.

"These knives are quality, guaranteed. Just take a look at this lovely bread knife, for example—"

"'Bread knife'?" Saitou repeated. "What the hell do you need a bread knife for? Any knife can cut bread."

"But the bread knife won't smash the bread," Tokio explained, shifting her head to look up at him.

"Who cares? It's bread."

"But smashed bread isn't pretty."

"I'm not gonna take a picture of the damn thing, I'm gonna _eat_ it. The hell do I care if it's smashed?"

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"You're missing the point, Hajime," she said patiently.

"That's because there isn't one, Tokio," he replied.

"Yes there is, you're just being obstinate." she argued. "It's about presentation. Smashed bread isn't as nice looking as not-smashed bread."

"It tastes the same," he said. "Cutting bread with a bread knife or some fruity shit like that doesn't make it taste any different from bread cut with any knife you grabbed from the drawer."

"Oh I give up," she muttered. "Besides, it's a stupid fight."

"You're just saying that because you know I'm right."

"I can, and will not hesitate, to make tonight very difficult for you," she threatened.

"And you think I can't?"

"I know you can—but I can do it better than you can, that's all."

Now there was a challenge if ever he'd heard one. And if it wasn't past one in the morning, he might have taken her up on it. So, instead, he gave her rump a light, warning tap.

"Behave, little girl."

"Yes _Daddy_," she said sarcastically, and he smirked.

"Feeling up to playing, Chiisai?" he asked dryly, and she pinched him.

"Stop that you pervert," she ordered.

They ended up watching the two infomercial hosts as they demonstrated how durable each knife was, and how they could be used.

"I still think a bread knife is ridiculous," Saitou muttered.

Tokio sighed wearily.

"Let it go," she advised, yawning.

"It's stupid."

"So I've heard," she dryly replied, raising an eyebrow.

There was a long pause.

"They're pretty nice looking knives, though," he admitted.

"Yeah, they are," she agreed after a moment, and he didn't miss the note in her voice that told him she was really interested and not just pretending to be. "Especially the cleaver."

He didn't say anything for a long time, and then he slowly murmured,

"Should I be concerned?"

"You're such a jerk."

"I'm just erring on the side of caution, Tokio. Women admiring knives tends to make men nervous."

"I wouldn't dream of cutting anything off you, Hajime."

"Now there's some good news."

She smiled, then rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

"It'd probably be way easier to make dinner if you actually had knives that cut, though," she said thoughtfully.

He grunted, absently rubbing a hand up and down her leg, the wheels in his head cranking away.

"I'm sleepy," she murmured after a moment.

"Sleepy or 'sleepy'?"

"The first one."

He snapped his fingers.

"Damn."

She shook her head, still smiling faintly, and closed her eyes.

"Sorry, not tonight."

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, waiting for her to fall asleep, the way she always did when they sat up like this. As soon as her breathing evened out, he very carefully picked her up and put her in the bed he'd turned down after he'd gotten into the sweatpants (when she saw them tomorrow morning he was going to get a lecture). He tossed the sheets over her, grabbed the phone off the bedside table, then left the room, quietly sliding the door shut. He went back to the living room, sat down on the couch and dialed the number at the bottom of the screen.

"Yeah, those knives they just showed," he said when someone finally answered his call. "So how fast would you be able to send 'em?"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 31: Cuttin' That Cord:_

"You left home?"

"Uh-huh."

"_Permanently_?"

"Uh-huh."

Saitou whistled:

"Damn. That must've been a helluva fight, Chiisai."

---

"So you suffer physically and I suffer monetarily?"

"I think it's an equal trade-off."

"Yeah—because _yours_ ends after nine months. _Mine_ continues for eighteen years…possibly more."

---

"I think you should leave, Takagi," Saitou said, voice mild, but eyes deadly.

"I'm not leaving without my daughter," Kojuro replied coldly.

"Yeah, about that," Saitou said, cracking his knuckles ominously as he took a step toward the older man. "I think ya are."

---

"This isn't fair," he muttered under his breath, scowling. "I'm supposed to get my turn to yell at her, damn it, but if I do it now I'll just be acting like a dick. And I can't do it later, either, 'cause then I'll look like an asshole. So I can't yell at her. _So_ not fair, goddamn it."


	31. Cuttin' That Cord

**I SO TOTALLY LIED..._AGAIN_.** **Guess that whole "never say never" thing really does exist.**

So I'm gonna try to keep this short, since I left you guys hanging for so ridiculously long.

**First:** **This is a Two Chapter Post—read accordingly.**

**Second:** **You guys are awesome.** Seriously, I mean it. Thanks all of you for the support during my (embarrassing) little piss-and-moan fest last update. I still do not have high hopes for this semester, but all the love makes me feel better. And also feel slightly ashamed of myself for the whining last time. _Cringes._ My apologies.

**Third: I am so sorry about this chapter being so late.** Life became unexpectedly hectic all of a sudden; my first big exam and my first big paper (we just started the semester for cryin' out loud!) came one after the other, and then earlier this week we had a death in the family, which is why this chapter didn't get posted Sunday/Monday/Tuesday of last week, as it would have been (no worries, guys, we're fine).

**Fourth:** Now that I have a better idea of how this semester is going to be going down, I warn you all now—**in the very near future, long waits between posts may become the norm**, as this semester seems inclined toward being very busy in the assignment department (which drives me crazy, but until I figure out how to control the world, I'll just have to deal like everyone else).

**Fifth: I'm almost done replying to people.** So if you're still waiting to hear from me, I thank you for your patience and apologize again for the delay.

(_looks at A/N_) …apparently my idea of "short" differs greatly from the universally accepted definition. Ah, well. And now, without further ado, Chapter Thirty-One, in which things get _really_ interesting…. ; p.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

The Pill in Japan: Our friends in the East are still not sold on the idea of the Pill; only about 1 percent of Japanese women use it, and it wasn't even approved for use until 1999, almost forty years after it made its debut elsewhere. Concerns over long-term Pill use and a potential rise in STDs (Pill use "phasing out" condom use) were the contributing factors in delaying the Pill's approval in the Land of the Rising Sun. Despite finally allowing the Pill on the market, the government's outlook remains suspicious, and there are rather stringent rules governing prescription of the Pill there; every three months a woman on the Pill is required to go in for pelvic exams, and STD and uterine cancer testing (I still don't like Wikipedia, but I will admit that they are very convenient when I need info in a pinch).

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Thirty-One: Cuttin' That Cord**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Yeah, I'm comin' already," Saitou yelled, rubbing his hair with a towel.

He'd just yanked on the sweatpants Tokio hated (as they were the closest thing on hand) when someone had begun trying to knock his door down.

He'd resigned himself to a rare Tokio-less night after talking to her earlier in the day. It was time to put in an appearance at home, which would keep Kojuro happy and oblivious. At least, Tokio thought so, anyway—Saitou was of the opinion that Kojuro was anything but happy and oblivious.

He was smart enough, however, not to share this opinion with her.

He left his bedroom, still rubbing his hair dry, got to the door and yanked it open.

And found Tokio, fist raised, looking shell-shocked.

Saitou stared, surprised.

"Tokio?" he asked.

"I got into a fight with Papa," she said, sounding dumbfound.

He blinked.

"Uh…okay," he said finally. "Come in."

She walked past him when he stood aside, and that was when he noticed she had a suitcase.

_That_ made his eyebrows shoot up.

"What's with the bag?" he asked, shutting the door.

"I left," she said.

"'Left'?"

"Home." she qualified.

"You left home?"

"Uh-huh."

"_Permanently_?"

"Uh-huh."

Saitou whistled:

"Damn. That must've been a helluva fight, Chiisai."

She nodded absently, walking into the bedroom and sitting down hard on the bed, suitcase hitting the carpet next to her feet. Saitou, towel now around his neck, stood in the doorway, shoulder against the doorjamb, holding onto both ends of the towel.

"So what'd you two fight about?" he asked.

"You," she said, watching the carpet blankly.

_Uh-oh…._

"And how did that start?" he inquired hesitantly, not sure he really wanted to know.

She immediately scowled, and he was suddenly very happy she didn't have the power to set things on fire with her glares, because otherwise he'd be shit out of luck and living in the barracks with his subordinates.

"Papa invited someone extra to dinner without telling us," she said darkly.

It took a moment for that to process.

"He tried to _set you up_ with someone?!" he demanded in a near bellow, outraged. "That _son of a fucking bitch_!"

It was a testament to her degree of anger that she didn't say a word the way she would have usually done when he said anything even slightly disparaging about her father.

"We didn't know Yuichi-san was coming until he showed up," she said, furious. "And Mama was _furious_. And then Papa started talking about how sad it was that I seemed intent on being with men who were beneath me, and Yuichi-san didn't say a word but everyone could see that he was embarrassed. And Papa kept taking these little jabs at you, until I got tired of it and told him to stop and then we got into a huge fight at the table, and then I yelled that I was leaving and I threw a bunch of my things in a bag and left."

"He let you leave?" Saitou asked, surprised to hear that, despite his anger.

"Yes and no," she replied.

"Chiisai, it's yes _or_ no," he said, exasperated, "not both."

"It's both," she insisted. "It's no because he wouldn't at first. And it's yes because he did after I threw his shoes at him."

Saitou stared at her.

"You threw his _shoes_ at him?" he asked finally.

"It was all I could find," she replied.

Saitou decided that it wasn't worth asking more questions on the subject.

"So once you left why didn't you call me and tell me you were coming?" he asked. "Not that I care if you show up without calling or anything, but a heads-up would have been nice."

"Because I didn't actually know I was going to come here," she admitted. "I just took a train and ended up here without thinking about it. By the time I got here I was freaking out," she added, some of her anger leaving her. "I've never yelled at Papa before."

"Well it's not like he didn't deserve it," Saitou muttered darkly. "The fucking prick."

She scrubbed her hands over her face, then looked up at him.

"Hajime? Do you mind if I s—"

"Like I'd let you go anywhere else," he said with a snort, rolling his eyes. "You're staying here, Chiisai."

"You don't mind?" she asked worriedly.

"Are you kidding? I've finally got you right where I want you," he replied, and she smiled faintly.

"Eight years of plotting finally coming to fruition?" she asked, faintly amused.

"I don't _plot_, I _strategize_," he corrected loftily. Pause. "And yes."

She grinned and shook her head.

"Oh _whatever_," she said. She finally really looked at him and he saw the laughter in her eyes.

"What?" he demanded.

"I take it you showered not too long ago?" she asked, tone absolutely amused.

"Yeah, why?"

"Didn't get around to combing your hair?"

He sighed a second later when he realized what she was talking about.

"Funny," he said dryly.

"_Hysterical_," she corrected, grinning widely.

He moved some of his clothes around in his closet and bureau to make room for more of hers (after combing his hair, not that that made the teasing stop in the least, of course), and then watched her get her things accommodated, since she'd quickly become impatient with his "help" (read: inadvertent interference), and banished him to the bed.

"I take it there's still more at your parents' house?" he asked, elbows anchored on his knees, hands dangling between his legs.

"Not really," she replied absently. "Half of my stuff is at Sada's already, and I've been slowly bringing stuff over here from home for a while now."

"Like all your scary women's creams," he said.

She laughed and looked over her shoulder at him.

"My what?" she asked.

"Your scary women's creams. 'Vanishing' this, 'peeling' that. Sounds more like the crap we used to do back with the department than part of a beauty regimen."

She shook her head.

"And then there's the tampons and pads," he continued. "I'll have you know that I died a little inside when I found them."

Tokio rolled her eyes and went back to her clothing.

"'Died a little inside', hm?" she dryly repeated. "You're such an ahou."

"It's a very depressing thing for a man to find in his place, Tokio," he assured. "Plus it's just gross."

"Oh mature."

"Well it is. It's completely insane that women are _supposed_ to bleed once a month."

Tokio shrugged.

"It's a necessary part of having babies," she replied.

"Which _we_ are not having," he said. **_Yet_**, his mind added.

"The only way to stop it altogether is to have a hysterectomy," she said, sounding amused.

"A little too drastic," he replied. "I thought you said the Pill'd stop it, though."

"No, it just makes getting my period less of a pain in the butt," she corrected.

"By the way, you're remembering to take that, right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Because it's not effective unless you take it every day at the same time—"

"Hajime, I read the instructions," she said, a note of faint exasperation in her voice.

"You have a bad habit of forgetting things, my pet," he replied.

"You call me every day to remind me," she said, sending him a LOOK over her shoulder.

He ignored it:

"Because if I don't call you and remind you, you won't remember on your own, and I'm not in any position to be paying for a kid right now."

"And I am?"

"No," he said patiently. "But who do you think's gonna pay the bulk of _that_ particular little expense?"

"I happen to think it's only fair, considering that I'd have to carry it around for nine months."

"So you suffer physically and I suffer monetarily?"

"I think it's an equal trade-off."

"Yeah—because _yours_ ends after nine months. _Mine_ continues for eighteen years…possibly more."

One of the great things about Tokio, Saitou had discovered, was that she didn't freak out about things like babies and unexpected pregnancy when he brought them up, because that was one thing that Saitou was in no way ready for just yet. Maybe in another year, when (if) he finally made Police Inspector and received the accompanying raise in pay. Right now, though, he wasn't in a position to even think about a baby.

The same conversation with Yaso would have turned into a fight (and actually, thirteen years ago, it _had_ turned into a fight), because despite the fact that it was a fairly serious topic, the only way for him to actually discuss it was to make jokes. Luckily, Tokio was as weird as him, and she always (or almost always) took a joke and ran with it.

He was not, however, joking about her taking the Pill everyday like she was supposed to, and because he knew she was absentminded, he reminded her. She called him a mother hen for it, but he decided that was a lot better than her calling him "Daddy" in a completely not sexual context a few months down the line.

She finished getting her clothing tucked away, shut the drawer in his bureau and turned around, leaning against it.

"I just remembered something," she said, looking a little worried.

"What?" he warily prompted, almost afraid to ask.

"I left my keys at home," she said, worrying at her bottom lip.

"Call your brother and have him bring them to the museum tomorrow," he suggested, relaxing—considering what they'd just been discussing, for one very unpleasant moment he'd thought he might have to call his parents very soon and tell them they were going to be grandparents again.

She considered this suggestion, then shrugged.

"I'll call him tomorrow morning, before he leaves the house," she decided, levering off the bureau and going to stand in front of him. "You sure you want me around all the time?" she asked, brushing his bangs out of his face. "Hate to cramp your style."

He rolled his eyes, grabbed her hips and tugged her closer, to stand between his legs.

"Don't worry, I'll tell all my other girlfriends you're here so they don't call or come by," he said dryly, and she sent him a flat look.

"Then I guess I should tell all my other boyfriends not to call me at night anymore, huh?" she shot back.

"Oh, you think you're funny, huh?"

"You started it, _Chuckles_."

He smirked.

"Jealous, Chiisai?"

"Well why would I be?" Tokio sweetly replied, "After all, Hajime, I'm sure you know I'd castrate you with that katana I got you for your birthday if I ever found out you had any other girlfriends."

The threat didn't even faze him:

"But you aren't jealous at all, right?" he prodded, and she grabbed his head and shoved him back, mumbling "Ahou," under her breath—or at least she did until she felt him yank her down with him.

"Hajime!" she shrieked, landing hard on him.

"Now that wasn't nice," he chided with a grin, patting her butt.

"You idiot!" she shouted, trying to get out of his grasp.

He stopped her with an obscenely loud slap on the ass that didn't hurt (much, anyway), but still made her yelp.

"There's more where that came from," he said, gently rubbing her abused derriere. "Be good."

"You didn't have to hit me," she mumbled against his collarbone.

"Call it a love tap."

"Sadist."

"Yeah, like you didn't know that already," he said in mock seriousness, and despite herself Tokio started laughing.

"You're a sick man, Hajime," she said, laughing, kissing his shoulder. "Now let me up—I wanna take a shower."

"Need some help?" he asked, feigning innocence, and Tokio rolled her eyes.

"No, and even if I did, I know better than to say so," she replied, poking him in the stomach hard enough to make him wince.

With his attention diverted, she took the opportunity to wriggle out of his grasp, rolling off the mattress and onto her feet gracefully.

"Be back in a bit," she said breezily, leaving the room, and Saitou sat up.

"Oi, make it quick, huh? I'm not some big shot associate director of a museum, and my paycheck shows it," he called, and heard her make some nondescript reply that he couldn't make out for the life of him.

Which meant he would probably have to threaten to drag her out himself. Again. He knew she didn't do it on purpose (or he was hoping she didn't do it on purpose, anyway), but he also knew that Tokio's mind had a tendency to wander when she was engaged in something fairly mindless, and he supposed nothing was as mindless as washing one's hair.

Happily (or maybe not, depending on your viewpoint), Tokio was out of the shower soon, and after blow drying her hair and putting on his shirt that she'd turned into her sleep shirt, she joined him in his bed, where he was finally getting toward the end of Shinpachi's book.

"Is it good?" she asked, snuggling into his side, head pillowed on his shoulder.

"Yeah," he grunted, absently rubbing a hand up and down her arm.

She smiled faintly and started reading too, lightly pinching him in protest when he turned a page before she was done, and prompting him to mutter under his breath about how annoying she could be without trying. She seemed to decide not to reply, which he knew meant she was going to wait and "punish" him later.

Eventually, she fell asleep, and he finished the book and then shut it and laid back and stared at the roof for a while.

Shinpachi was getting closer and closer to the end, and Saitou had some mixed feelings about that. Their last year with the department had not been a good one. Okita had gone through a period of crushing depression, Shinpachi had been pulled from active duty for repeatedly letting his anger get the better of him, Harada had nearly succeeded in ending his life, and Saitou had been a hair's breath away from execution for the "Don't-give-a-fuck" attitude he'd adopted and the shit he'd pulled while in that mindset. It had been the lowest point of his life, and he'd just turned twenty-one. And he knew every moment of that collective downward spiral was going to be documented. He hadn't shared that part with Tokio, and he really didn't want to. That had been a bad time, and one he preferred not to remember or examine too closely.

Sighing, he carefully extracted himself from Tokio, got up and walked to the bureau and set the book on top, where all of Shinpachi's books were. He eyed the collection for a moment, and wondered, not for the first time, how it was possible that Shinpachi had managed to turn two and a half years into eighteen volumes and counting. Then again, it _had_ been a rather eventful two and a half years, he supposed.

"What are you wearing?" Tokio's voice, groggy but quite displeased, demanded, and Saitou looked over his shoulder and found her leaning up on her elbow and glaring sleepily at him.

"Huh?"

"What are you wearing?" she asked again, saying each word sharply.

He glanced down at his attire, saw the sweat pants she loathed, and then grinned back up at her.

"Pants," he said cheerfully, and he saw her jaw lock.

"I'm going to throw those away," she muttered.

"Hey, I like these," he said, a little offended and already wondering where he could hide them from her so she couldn't make good on her threat.

"They're ratty!"

"They're comfortable."

"I hate them," she snapped, and he eyed her for a moment, then smirked.

"Do you now?" he drawled, and she sent him a wary look. "Well, I'll fix that for you Chiisai."

And he promptly tugged the offending article of clothing off, tossed it aside and smirked at her.

"Problem solved, my pet."

She blushed, grabbed his pillow and threw it at him.

"You're shameless!" she yelled, and he laughed. "Put your pants on!"

"Well which is it Chiisai? On or off?"

"Oh shut up!"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

What the hell was it with people trying to break down his door?

Very loud, door-rattling pounding jerked Saitou out of a sound sleep fifteen minutes before his alarm was supposed to go off, which ensured that he was already thinking very uncharitably about whoever was trying to break down his door. He rolled over, checked on Tokio—still asleep, hair covering half her face—then tossed back the sheets and got up, going through the list of things he was going to do to the asshole on the other side of his door when he opened it. He had the presence of mind to yank on the sweat pants he'd tossed aside last night, and grab a shirt and shrug into that on his way over. Normally, he might have been inclined to weird/freak out whoever was bothering him by answering the door _au natural_, which usually ensured that the visit was very short, but if he was going to be killing this person who had disturbed him so early in the morning (and that was the plan), he didn't want to be getting blood on places that had no business having blood on them.

He made it to the door and whipped it open, and had a split second to both be thankful he'd put some clothes on and jerk back before Tokio's furious father punched him in the face.

Nothing like a fist to the face to start your day.

"What the fuck?!" Saitou demanded.

"If she's here I'm making sure you never so much as _think_ about fucking a woman ever again!" Kojuro bellowed.

This was not Saitou's first experience with very pissed off fathers/brothers/male family members looking after the girl he was currently seeing, but it was definitely the first time one of them had showed up at his house with the intent to kill. Or perhaps maim was the better word, considering Kojuro's threat.

He was sort of wondering how he was going to get out of this one, because while he had no desire to be turned into a woman, he also had no desire to piss off Tokio, and he was pretty sure that even as mad as she was at her father right now, she would not appreciate Saitou's knocking the old man's lights out.

Assuming he could land another hit, of course—breaking the old man's nose in Round One a few weeks back had been pure luck, not that he'd ever willingly admit it.

"Get the fuck out of my apartment," Saitou ordered, hoping he could possibly reason the man out of his apartment, because he really didn't want to get into a fight this early in the morning, and he really _really_ didn't want to call his brothers on the force on his girlfriend's father—not just because it would be embarrassing for the old man, but because it would be embarrassing for him, too.

"Where is my daughter?" Kojuro demanded, face furious.

"I think you should leave, Takagi," Saitou said, voice mild, but eyes deadly; shit, he was going to have to get into a fight—Kojuro was beyond talking to, and Saitou could see it in the old man's eyes.

"I'm not leaving without my daughter," Kojuro replied coldly.

"Yeah, about that," Saitou said, cracking his knuckles ominously as he took a step toward the older man. "I think ya are."

Tokio had heard the pounding faintly, but she'd ignored it, too tired to care, really. Listening to Saitou's disgruntled muttering as he got up had made her smile, and she'd sleepily hoped he got rid of whoever it was soon, so he could come back, because the bed always got a little chiller without his warm bulk there.

That little dream died a horrible flaming death when she heard her father's voice.

She'd jerked upright upon hearing her father's voice, heart in her throat and in full panic mode, and somewhere in the back of her mind she grumbled that this was a completely unacceptable way to wake up. She threw the sheets back and scrambled out of the bed and got to the doorway in time to watch Saitou block Kojuro's right fist and nearly get kneed in the crotch—he managed to jump out of the way at the last minute, looking very relieved and very nervous.

"Papa!" Tokio shouted, horrified and more than a little pissed—if _anyone_ was going to kick her boyfriend in the nads, damn it, it was going to be _her_, and he hadn't pissed her off enough yet to have her seriously consider doing it.

"Oh fucking hells, why'd you have to go and say anything?!" Saitou snapped, and Tokio's eyes narrowed.

Perhaps she'd spoken too soon about his not pissing her off enough….

"Well what am I supposed to do you idiot, let him kill you?" she snapped back.

"Tokioko, we're going home now." Kojuro said, voice brooking no argument.

Saitou didn't seem to think this was necessarily true, however:

"She's not going anywhere fucker," he snarled.

_Oh how charming_, Tokio thought, more annoyed than anything right now. _This'll be a great story to tell my children. "Children, did you know that once upon a time, Daddy used to call Grandpa 'fucker'? Imagine—that was **before** they could stand each other! Boy, I sure am glad they moved to 'asshole' and 'dumb shit'—aren't you, children?"_

Saitou managing to get her father into a headlock via some fancy maneuvering, and her father attempting to take a chunk out of his arm, brought her out of her head.

"Oi!" she yelled. "Stop that, both of you!"

"He started it!" Saitou shouted. "_Again_!"

"Well I'm finishing it!" Tokio shot back, putting a shrill edge to her voice that she knew Saitou hated because Okita had told her about how his former girlfriend Aioi's shrill screaming had always set Saitou's nerves on edge. "Now let my father go!"

He glared at her, but did as she demanded, and managed to dodge the old man's fists.

"TAKAGI KOJURO!" Tokio bellowed, and Kojuro, obviously surprised that his daughter was calling him by his full name, paused and looked over his shoulder at her.

She glared at both men, then crossed her arms over her chest.

"What in the seven hells is wrong with you?" she demanded of them. "It isn't even eight o'clock in the morning, and you're trying to kill each other!"

"Don't take that tone of voice with me, young lady," Kojuro barked, obviously over his surprise. "If anyone should be lectured here, it's you!"

"I'm not the one starting fist fights in someone else's home like some maniac!" Tokio shot back, raising her voice.

"No, _you're_ the one shacking up with this delinquent like a whore!" Kojuro roared, and Tokio flinched as if he'd slapped her.

He might as well have.

Saitou tamped down his temper with effort. He decided that Kojuro was lucky that he was Tokio's father, because if it had been anyone else, Saitou wouldn't have had any reservations about beating the ever-loving shit out of the guy, most likely to death. All the same, Kojuro's being her father gave the old man no right to speak about Tokio in a manner that impugned her spotless honor, and it also didn't stop him from throwing the son of a bitch out for it.

"That's it asshole, get out of my apartment or I fucking make you!" he bellowed.

"Stay out of this," the old man snapped.

"Fuck you, you're in _my_ apartment, get the fuck out!"

"I said stay out of it!"

"Fine, I'll make you," Saitou said.

"Touch me and I break you," Kojuro warned, and though Saitou knew the old man meant the threat and was fully capable of making good on it, the younger man was now in a dimension of pissed he hadn't been in since his younger days, and he was currently willing to take any damage to his person as long as it meant he got the old man out of his apartment before Saitou lost it and decided the fuck with it and killed him.

"Then I guess you're breakin' me motherfucker," Saitou snapped back.

And that was about the moment Tokio threw her purse at him.

In retrospect, he decided he probably should have been watching her out of the corner of his eye, because it was hard to predict how she'd react sometimes when she was upset. Usually, you could count on at least one airborne object (most times it was multiple airborne objects) and lots of yelling, but that was about it, and that only happened, for sure, about eighty percent of the time. The other twenty percent of the time was what Saitou liked to refer to as "an unknown unknown".

And this, apparently, was one of those times.

"Fucking Christ Tokio!" he bellowed, clutching the side of his head. "What the _fuck_, goddamn it?!"

"Stop it, both of you!" Tokio yelled.

"Why didn't you throw the fucking purse at him?!" Saitou demanded, jabbing his finger in Kojuro's direction.

"Because my daughter isn't a delinquent," Kojuro snapped.

"No, according to you she's a fucking _whore_, or did I not hear you right? If you think I'm gonna forgive you that, you're an idiot, Takagi!"

"I said that's enough!" Tokio bellowed.

Saitou, pissed at having gotten what he thought was the old man's just reward, countered with,

"No, you yelled it."

Which prompted Tokio to glare at him in a manner that told him that as soon as her father was gone, they were going to have a very nasty fight about this.

"Tokioko, you have five minutes to pack your things and meet me downstairs," Kojuro said coldly, sending Saitou a very impressive death glare.

"Papa, I told you last night that I wasn't going to come back home until—"

"Then you can stay with Sada but you aren't staying another second in this man's apartment!" Kojuro bellowed, silencing his daughter. "Now get your things together!"

And so saying he stormed over to the door, threw it open and left, slamming it shut hard behind him.

Saitou and Tokio stared at the door, thrown off by the abrupt departure. Then, Saitou looked at her and said,

"You're not staying with your sister."

She sent him an annoyed look, then turned and went back into the bedroom, which he decided was not a good sign. He followed her and found her tugging on a pair of jeans.

"Oi, did you hear me? I said you aren't going to your sister's."

She completely ignored him, tugging the sleep shirt off and tossing it in his direction with just a little too much accuracy for him to think she'd simply gotten lucky when it hit his face with loud FWAP. He tugged the shirt off his head, glaring at her, and watched her get into her bra and grab a shirt.

"Tokio, the fuck you're leaving," he said menacingly. "That asshole can't just come over here and—"

"I'll thank you to remember that that's my _father_ you're talking about," she snapped, sending him a frosty look that had him bristling.

"Yeah, he's your father—the guy who just attacked me in my own home not thirty seconds ago!"

That didn't seem to have the desired effect, since she went right on back to getting dressed. So he played dirty, because he wasn't above doing it if it got him what he wanted:

"He's also the same guy who called his own daughter a—"

"I was there!" she yelled.

"Yeah? You sure as hell aren't acting like it!"

"Move," she said, disgusted, as she tried to get around him.

"You're not leaving," he snapped.

"Get out of the fucking way!" she snapped back, and he was so surprised by the outburst that he stepped out of her way and allowed her to go by. He shook himself out of it and whirled around.

"Oi, get back over here," he demanded, following her to the door.

"Would you just get the hell away from me?!" she exploded, turning. "Just shut up and leave me alone already!"

Then she turned back around, grabbed her shoes from the rack, opened the door and left, slamming it shut behind her. He stared at the door, then scowled.

"Yeah? Well fuck you too Tokio," he snarled, whipping the shirt to the floor and stalking back into the bedroom to get dressed for work.

By the time he was ready, she still hadn't come back, which suited him just fine.

She wanted him to leave her the hell alone? Well she'd get her wish.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It had been a very long time since Saitou had terrorized his subordinates the way he had that day. Aoshi hadn't even been around for that last time, and if the younger man had believed that having to deal with a Saitou pissed off at having his brother living with him was bad, he was going to have to reconsider his definition of the term "unholy nightmare" after today.

After his shift ended he'd gone to the dojo and beaten the absolute shit out of all the younger men who were down there training and hadn't had the sense to listen to their more experienced and smarter colleagues. It hadn't helped in the least, because none of the matches had lasted longer than a minute, if that, and Saitou found himself wishing for the days when he'd been able to spar with Yamazaki Susumu. The man had been the department's doctor, treating all the operatives when needed, and he'd also been a great sparring partner when Okita was moody or Himura wasn't around to torment into accepting a challenge. He had half a mind to look up Jin'e and pick another fist fight, but decided against it at the last minute, since Jin'e also had the irritating habit of trying to psycho-analyze his opponent, and Saitou didn't want to kill him, he just wanted to beat him up a little and make himself feel better.

In the end, he ended up at Harada Sanosuke's home. He hadn't seen the loud, tall man in many years, and as an added plus, Harada had a habit of always saying the wrong thing to Saitou at the wrong time and causing an argument. And with no Shinpachi or Okita around to do damage control, they'd have to beat on each other until someone passed out of blood loss.

Or so he thought—Saitou had forgotten about the wife and kid.

And they were _way_ better at keeping him in check than Shinpachi or Okita combined on one of their better days.

So Harada's cheerful wife fed him and Harada's kid asked him all sorts of questions about what being a cop was like, and Saitou ended up going home an hour later, still frustrated and feeling slightly guilty that he'd showed up at his old friend's house with the express intent of starting some shit.

He was home and showered by nine, and still there was no sign of Tokio, which didn't necessarily surprise him, though he was a little annoyed that she was hiding from him. Of course, they'd had quite the unpleasant little spat earlier, even if it hadn't been finished, so he'd been expecting her to avoid him for a little while. Yaso had done the same thing after a fight, purposely waiting until he was asleep to come home and slink into the bedroom and go to bed, then quietly getting up before him the next morning and leaving so she didn't have to get into another fight with him unless she wanted to. Or, if she couldn't hide from him, she just pretended he wasn't there and went on about her business pretty as you please.

And once she'd figured out that the silent treatment didn't bother him, they skipped that part and went straight into dueling until someone won.

But dueling with Tokio had always been different. For one thing, she often pissed him off to the point that he started yelling, which Yaso had never been able to do. It was only towards the end of his department days that he and Yaso had had yelling matches. And for another, she had that nasty little habit of throwing things when she got really pissed off. But he'd noticed that she didn't usually aim specifically for him so much as his general area, and if she did aim specifically for him, they were things that weren't going to actually hurt him on impact—pillows and clothing were usually her projectiles of choice. Which he thought was remarkably thoughtful of her, as mad as she was at the moment.

Saitou snorted when he remembered that she'd thrown her purse at him that morning. That had been a marked deviation from what appeared to be her personal "Things-I-Can-Throw-At-My-Big-Stupid-Boyfriend's-Big-Stupid-Head" rule, in that it had hurt like a bitch and left an impressive mark that no one had had the balls to remark on. He couldn't be sure, exactly, but he thought she might have taken to dropping a brick (or _three_) into it so it did more damage when she used it as a weapon.

He sat on the couch and watched TV and waited for her to show up, because he decided there were only two places she'd go, his apartment or Sada's house, and if she went to Sada's he was almost positive that her sister would march Tokio's happy little ass back to him so they could duke it out and move on; Sada spoke Saitou's language too, and as far as they were concerned, you fought to the conclusion of a fight and that was that.

But she hadn't arrived by the time eleven fifty-six rolled around, and he was really really starting to get worried. All her things were still in the apartment (that had been the first thing he'd done when he'd gotten home, check to see if she'd caved in to her old man and left), and he'd assumed that that was probably a good thing, but not hearing from her for so long was, he knew, not a good thing.

So he called up Sada:

"Yo Sexy-san."

His heart lurched and he was frantic now, because that greeting meant Sada hadn't heard about their fight and most likely had no idea where Tokio was. Still, on the off-chance that he was wrong and Sada was simply acting like, well, _herself_, he asked,

"Have you talked to Tokio?"

There was a long pause that gave him hope. Then:

"No. Why?" she asked, sounding baffled, and Saitou absently decided that hope was a bitch and he was going to murder it with extreme prejudice next chance he got.

"She's not here," he said through gritted teeth, pinching the bridge of his nose a lot harder than he probably should have been doing, "she's not here and it's almost midnight and I haven't heard from her all day."

Another long pause, but he wasn't hoping for good news by this point.

"Maybe she's at home," Sada suggested, sounding completely serious now and also maybe a little worried.

"Unlikely," he replied, "since she left last night."

"Oh _shit_!"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"She left?! Are you for real?" Sada demanded.

"Yes," he snapped, and Sada yelled "Oh _shit_!" again. He growled under his breath. "Damn it Sada!"

"Sorry, sorry," Sada said hurriedly. "But, geez, Hajime-san—I can't believe it!" Another pause. "Wait a minute, so where's she staying? With you?"

"Well she was," he muttered. "But after this morning I'm not completely sure if she'll be staying."

"You guys got into a fight," Sada said with a sigh.

"Because of your fucking bat-shit insane father," Saitou snapped, offended without quite knowing why—by now it was kind of a reflex when it came to anything involving Tokio. "He showed up this morning and tried to punch my lights out and take her back home."

Sada groaned, then sighed again.

"Did you try to call her?"

"You know the drill, Sada," he said more than a little churlishly. "If I call her before she feels like talking to me I get hung up on."

Another longer and much more irritated sigh came from Sada's end.

"You guys are so stupid," she muttered. "Fine," she said a little louder, before Saitou could retort, "I'll call her and see where she is, okay?"

"Yeah, fine," he said, rubbing a hand over his face. "Thanks."

He hung up and tossed the phone aside and sat on the couch, hands clasped before his mouth, and waited for Tokio's sister to locate and get a status report on his truant girlfriend for him. When his phone rang ten minutes later, he decided she either had really good news or really bad news.

"Well?" he asked, not bothering with pleasantries.

"Her cell phone's turned off," Sada said, sounding really worried now.

"_Fuck_," Saitou snarled under his breath, standing up. "All right, where do you think she'd be?"

"I don't know," Sada began.

"Well take a fucking guess," he snapped. "If you're wrong you're wrong and if you're right you're right."

"Maybe with Enishi and Kamatari," she said, sounding subdued, and he regretted snapping at her. But right now, he wanted to know where Tokio was and why she wasn't home yet, so he'd just have to make amends later. "Or with Teruhime."

"Who?" he asked sharply, eyes narrowing at the unfamiliar…no wait a minute, that name niggled somewhere in the back of his mind.

"Teruhime," Sada repeated. "She and Tokio've been friends for forever. Teruhime rolls with fat cats like Akira-kun does—Tokio met her 'cause of our cousin, actually."

"She's the one with the antiques, right?" Saitou asked.

"Oh, so you have heard of her," Sada said. "For a minute there I thought you hadn't."

"Briefly," Saitou replied, wondering why he hadn't heard more about this woman if she and Tokio were such old and dear friends. "Gimme her number."

"You're gonna just call people 'til you get a hit?" Sada asked, sounding mildly incredulous.

"Yes."

"And if you don't get a hit?"

"Then I'm going to go find Honjou and Yukishiro and strangle them for not keeping a better eye on her."

Pause. Then:

"Well, at least you've got a plan, anyway. Hold on a second, I gotta find it."

"Hurry up," he ordered, getting up and walking out of the living room. He went into his room and grabbed a pair of jeans, then cradled the phone between his shoulder and head and started getting dressed; just in case he couldn't get a hold of anyone, he wanted to be able to leave his apartment to hunt down Kamatari and Enishi while his anger was still nice and fresh.

Sada said some not-very-complimentary things about him under her breath in a rather Tokio-like fashion, and he ignored it the same way he ignored Tokio's and got dressed.

"Okay," Sada said at long last, "I found a number, but I don't know if it's still Teruhime's."

"Just give it to me," Saitou ordered, walking out of his room and to the kitchen. It wasn't until he'd started going out with Tokio that his kitchen had acquired a junk drawer (the concept of which still offended the hell out of his OCD, despite the many many times she'd explained it to him), and he went straight to it and got out a pen and a receipt, which he absently decided was lucky, since all he'd been expecting to find was a pen, not a scrap of paper to write on.

Sada rattled off the number and he scribbled it down far messier than he would have normally, but he was getting really worried. It scared him a little that Sada didn't know where Tokio was, because if there was anyone who'd know where his diminutive spitfire was, it'd be her little sister.

"I'll let you know once I find her," he offered.

"Thanks," she said. "Don't freak out too much when she finally comes home, okay? Leaving home was a really big thing for her, and after having Dad show up this morning, I'm pretty sure she's in shock."

"That's assuming she actually comes home," Saitou said darkly, glaring at the phone number he'd been given, and Sada sighed.

"Just call and let me know what you find out, okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it."

He ended the call, then immediately dialed Teruhime's number. And got an old man who had no idea what a Teruhime was, never mind knowing a woman by that name. Apologizing for calling so late, Saitou ended the call, crumpled up the receipt and whipped it across the room, growling in frustration.

He called up Enishi, and got the younger man's voicemail. So, in retaliation, he left possibly the most horribly violent message he'd left on any recording device _ever_, with warnings of gruesome and appropriately dire things to come should Enishi fail to contact him immediately with any news on Tokio's whereabouts.

His next call, to Kamatari, was one step forward and three leaps back. He actually talked to someone this time, but the effeminate man had no idea where Tokio was and had last seen her at four thirty, news which Saitou decided made it completely within his rights to kill the man. He was arguing that right with his intended victim when someone began pounding on his door, and if Saitou weren't so pissed off and frantic he might have realized that that made three times in a little over twenty-four hours that someone had tried to bang his door off its hinges.

He strode to the door, threw it open, then stared, stunned, when he found Tokio, leaning rather heavily against the doorframe and looking unsteady and smelling rather strongly of alcohol. The sound of Kamatari yelling in his ear brought him out of his stupor:

"I'll call you back," he said absently, ending the call and tossing the phone over his shoulder into the apartment.

They stared at each other in silence for several minutes, and then Tokio righted herself with difficulty and slipped into the apartment past him, managing to toe her heels off without falling over. He let go of the door, turned around and watched her shuffle towards the bedroom, and his temper flared at being ignored.

"Where have you been?" he demanded, and she stopped but didn't turn toward him, or answer him, and that, he decided, was a huge mistake on her part.

Saitou grabbed hold of his door and slammed it shut so hard he was genuinely surprised, somewhere in the back of his mind where the haze of fury had yet to settle, that _he_ didn't take it off its hinges or break it.

"Where. Have. You. Been?" he bit out. "It's almost one o'clock in the fucking morning, Tokio."

He was torn between pissed and relieved, and he idly thought that this whole arrangement, her living with him, would be much more taxing on his nerves than he'd originally thought. Because it wasn't the fact that she'd been out so late that bothered him (okay, so it didn't bother him _too_ much), it was that she hadn't at least called and let him know she was going to be out late (and being in a fight was no excuse either, as far as he was concerned, so _there_). And it wasn't because it was a courtesy or some crap like that—it was because he didn't want to be the way he'd been for the past two hours, anxious and wondering if she was okay.

The sniffle caught him off guard.

"You're mad at me too?" she asked quietly. "Everyone else is. Papa an' Mama're mad at me, an' Morinusuke, an' Katsura-san…I guess one more won't make a difference."

_This_, he decided, _will not end well._

"Don't worry, I only jus' came for a couple things," she continued, and she seemed a lot smaller than she usual was. "I'll get every thing else later, an' I'll get your key back to you, too—"

"Tokio, shut up," he said wearily, all the fight going out of him—he'd have been heartless to pick a fight with a depressed drunk woman, even if she really deserved to have her ass chewed out.

A louder sniffle this time, and he walked over and turned her around and dragged her into his arms, nose buried in her hair. He sighed and rubbed her back as she sniffled and hiccupped against his chest.

"Yeah I'm pissed off, but I'm not gonna put you out, crazy," he chided gruffly. "I was just gonna yell at you a little bit."

"I'm sorry," she said, voice muffled and thick with tears.

"You don't even know what you're apologizing for," he muttered into her hair, frowning.

"I'm still sorry," she returned, and he kissed the top of her head and reached down to give her fanny an affectionate pat.

"Not now, Chiisai," he said gently. "When you're sober, okay? Right now, you need a cold shower and sleep."

So he gently shoved her into the bath room and then went into the bedroom to look for her sleep shirt, which he hadn't found on the floor when he'd come home earlier.

"This isn't fair," he muttered under his breath, scowling. "I'm supposed to get my turn to yell at her, damn it, but if I do it now I'll just be acting like a dick. And I can't do it later, either, 'cause then I'll look like an asshole. So I can't yell at her. _So_ not fair, goddamn it."

He couldn't remember a no-win situation quite like this one. And if it had been anyone else, he wouldn't have given a second thought to blowing his stack. But the rules didn't always apply to his relationship with Tokio, so he supposed that, just this once, he'd have to ignore it.

And if, twenty years down the line, he died as a result of a massive tension-and-stress-induced brain tumor, well, that was a risk he was willing to take.

It beat feeling like he'd kicked a puppy.

He found the sleep shirt and waited outside the bath room for her to finish, then handed her the shirt when she opened the door in a towel, pale and sad-looking, and he went back to the bedroom to wait for her and also to hide from the kicked-puppy look, because it made him feel like an asshole. While he waited, he decided it was totally unfair that she could make him feel like shit with one look when he hadn't even done anything, and he didn't have any such resource at his disposal (that he was aware, of anyway), and also remembered to call Sada and let her know her older sister had made it home, more or less in one piece.

After ten minutes had passed and she still hadn't come in, he got up and went to the bath room to see what was keeping her, and found the light off and the room empty. Frowning, he checked the toilet, thinking that maybe she'd gotten sick and he hadn't noticed, as immersed in self-pity as he'd been, but she wasn't there either. She wasn't in the kitchen, which he already knew because he'd looked in that direction when he'd left the bedroom, and all had been quiet over there. So that left the living room, and sure enough, she was curled up on the couch, holding a pillow to her chest.

"Tokio," he said wearily, leaning against the doorjamb, "what the hell are you doing?"

"Sleepin' on the couch," she replied despondently.

"Why?" he asked, exasperated.

"'Cause you're mad at me."

He rolled his eyes and pushed off the doorjamb to enter the room, stop by the couch, lean over and scoop her up.

"Come on Chiisai," he said, plucking the pillow from her grasp and tossing it back on the couch, then adjusting his hold on her. "We're going to bed."

"But you're mad at me," she insisted.

"No, I'm cranky and I wanna go to bed," he corrected, using his elbow to shut off the living room light. "And if I was mad, baby, _I'd_ sleep on the couch. I wouldn't make you sleep there."

"You are too mad," she murmured. "You look mad."

"I always look mad," he countered, elbowing the lights off in the main room too before walking back into the bedroom and sliding the door shut.

She didn't have a response for that, it appeared, because she didn't say anything else on the subject, and he was relieved.

He adjusted his hold on her again when he reached the bed, so he could drag the sheets back and then set her down on the mattress gently. She grabbed the sheets and pulled them up to her chin and watched him.

"Are you gonna leave now?"

"Nope," he said, taking his shirt off and tossing it at the foot of the bed, then unbuttoning his jeans. "I already told you I'm not mad, Chiisai."

"You were," she muttered, curling into a ball.

"Yeah I was mad," he replied under his breath, jerking his jeans off and tossing them with the shirt. "It was one in the morning and I hadn't heard from you all day. I didn't know if you were gonna come home or what."

"Sorry."

He groaned.

"Chiisai, not now, okay? We'll talk about that tomorrow. I'm not mad, okay? You're here, even if you are drunk, and that's enough right now."

"I went out with Teruhime," she informed him. "I hadn't seen her in a long time. She says hi, by the way."

"Uh-huh," he said as he looked around for his pants. He found them and tugged them on, then went back to the bed and joined her after she scooted over. He hauled her back over and tucked her head under his chin. Her hair was damp and bothered a little, but not enough for him to let go of her. Besides, judging by the way she was holding on to him, he doubted she'd have been keen on the change.

"Hajime?" she whispered.

"Go to sleep baby," he murmured, rubbing her back. "Tomorrow's gonna suck."

She was quiet for a very long time—long enough that he was almost convinced she'd fallen asleep—and then she kissed his collarbone and said,

"Thanks."

He gave her a squeeze.

"You're welcome. But you can thank me later."

"When I'm not drunk?"

"Yeah, when you're not drunk—sex with a drunk woman isn't fun unless you're drunk too."

She snorted.

"You look so normal," she muttered. "Hard to believe you're such a letch, really."

"It's the quiet ones ya gotta watch," he said authoritatively. He frowned as a thought occurred. "You didn't take your Pill today, did you?"

There was a long pause that he took to mean no, and then she admitted,

"I don't remember."

Which was as good as saying no in his mind. He pursed his lips and decided they were going to have to be extra careful for a while. Yeah, it was a little neurotic, but Saitou wasn't interested in becoming a daddy right yet. It kinda sucked, though, being so neurotic—once she'd gone on the Pill, he'd drastically cut down on his birth control expenses. Plus, not having to use a rubber was…_fucking_ _great_.

And yes, pun intended.

"Sorry," she murmured, and he rolled his eyes.

"Chiisai, why do you feel compelled to apologize all the time?" he asked in faint exasperation. "Don't worry about it. We just have to be a little more careful for a while."

She snorted again.

"_More_ careful? The only way to be _more_ careful is to never have sex ever again."

"Ha ha ha smart one," he said sarcastically.

"I'm serious."

"I'm not that bad."

"Whatever."

"I'll tickle you."

"I'll throw up on you."

A pause.

"Touché," he decided, and felt her smile against his collarbone. He gave her butt a squeeze. "Oi, you're supposed to be sleeping."

"I'm not sleepy yet."

"Tough—go to sleep."

"I can't sleep on command, Hajime."

"Well, you're in no condition to have sex."

"Why is that your solution for everything?"

"'Cause I'm a guy."

"Sometimes you worry me, you know."

"I resent that, woman."

"It can't be normal for you to think about that as often as you do."

"Oh like you never think about it."

"I never said that."

"You implied it."

"Whatever."

"Why is that your response for everything?"

"'Cause you let me get away with it."

That answer brought him up short, and he thought about it.

"Huh," he said finally, and he felt her smile against his collarbone again.

She nuzzled his neck and snuggled closer, and then murmured,

"Hajime? I didn't mean to snap at you this morning."

He frowned, then sighed.

"Don't worry about it," he muttered; any faint hope he might have had at getting a chance to yell at her disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Don't strain yourself," she muttered in reply, obviously miffed at his response.

"Sorry," he said, sincere. "Didn't mean to sound…ungrateful, I guess."

There was a long pause. Then:

"Okay," she said quietly, and he gave her butt a friendly pat.

"What happened after you left?" he asked.

She stiffened ever so slightly against him, then relaxed.

"I'd rather not talk about it," she replied, voice deceptively light, and he decided that tomorrow would be soon enough to find out, though part of him was smug—if what he thought had happened had, in fact, happened, then Tokio was going to be staying with him for a good long time, which suited him just fine.

"Okay," he agreed. "So…gonna shut up now?"

She sighed, and he knew she was rolling her eyes too.

"Well aren't you a charmer," she muttered.

"Go to sleep you drunk," he ordered, kissing the top of her head.

"Ass."

"Baby."

"Jerk."

"Chiisai."

She pinched him, grabbing some skin and twisting hard, and he hissed.

"Who's the baby now?" she taunted.

"I'll spank you," he warned.

"Perv."

"Go to sleep," he said gruffly.

"Fine," she said with a sigh. "Thank you Hajime."

He didn't reply, instead rubbing his hand up and down her back.

"'Night Chiisai."

"G'night," she murmured, and within a few moments her breathing had even out and he knew she was asleep.

Saitou sighed.

"I'm a fucking pansy," he muttered, remembering a time where acting like an asshole wouldn't have bothered him in the least. Of course, a lot had changed since he'd been married to Yaso, and he liked to think he'd learned from the experience. Sometimes—like now, for example—he knew he had. And sometimes—like now, for example—he lamented over the loss of some of his edge.

Then again, the "I-don't-give-a-flying-fuck" attitude got old after a while.

Plus it was a lot lonelier than the whole "I-grudgingly-care-but-it's-_sooo_-not-obvious" attitude.

Something she'd said earlier, about her mother and brother and Katsura being angry with her, in addition to her father, came back to him, and made him narrow his eyes.

Going after Kojuro to beat him into making up with Tokio and making her happy again was out of the question, since he was pretty sure that if he escaped ending up in a body bag, he'd likely be in the hospital for a good long time. But beating her brother into submission would probably be a lot easier. And sweet talking Katsuko would be cake—the old lady thought the sun rose and set on him.

Katsura was another "unknown unknown", but Saitou was reasonably sure that he could bully the businessman into forgiving Tokio for whatever it was he was pissed off at her for. And if he couldn't reason with the man, Saitou'd just beat on him until Katsura changed his tune.

Barbaric, perhaps, but sometimes a good ass-whooping was the best way to get some shit done.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 32: What Child Is This?:_

_Dead._

_Dead dead dead dead dead._

Saitou looked over at the boy standing silently beside him on the train, duffle bag in one hand, school bag on his back.

_Totally fucking dead._

---

The rest of the evening was an indistinguishable blur that didn't become clear—sharply, _brutally_ clear—until…well, _now_, really.

---

"Tokio!" he yelped. "What the _hell_ was that for?!"

"I can't believe you!" she returned, the cheery façade gone now and replaced by the "Hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned" look he'd seen once or twice (which meant he was seconds away from death). "_You_ have a _kid_ and you didn't _tell_ me?! Don't you think that's kind of _important_, you _dumb ass_?!"

---

The best way to sum up today?

Well, "sucked" came immediately to mind.


	32. What Child Is This?

**PART TWO OF A TWO-PART POST!** **Read Chapter Thirty-One Before Proceeding!

* * *

**Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nada.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Nada.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Thirty-Two: What Child Is This?_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Dead._

_Dead dead dead dead dead._

Saitou looked over at the boy standing silently beside him on the train, duffle bag in one hand, school bag on his back.

_Totally fucking dead._

He didn't exactly know how he'd ended up being Mishima Eiji's temporary guardian.

He also didn't exactly know how he was going to explain this to Tokio.

Which meant she was going to kill him dead.

And today had started off so well, too.

It had been three days since Kojuro had gone bat-shit and tried to remove Saitou's head from his body and take Tokio back home. Things had since been quiet at the apartment. A smidge uneasy, at least on Tokio's part, but quiet.

She'd had one hell of a hangover the next day, and he'd gone in late to make sure she was going to be okay. Or actually, he'd pestered her until she'd finally gotten good and annoyed with him and his hovering and kicked him out, snapping that unlike _some_ people (cue a pointed, blood-shot-eyed glare in his direction), she wasn't a big, fat baby who needed someone to do everything for her. So he left a glass of water on the bedside table where she'd be able to reach it with some aspirin, kissed her forehead and left. And when he got back later, she was still sleeping it off. Eventually she dragged herself out of bed and made some instant soba and ate that, then showered—never sparing him a glance. Once she had showered, though, she perked up and appeared more sociable, and then they had a nice long discussion and mini-fight about Kojuro's visit and Tokio's day after it.

It appeared that Saitou—who had taken the back exit of his building, knowing that if he saw Kojuro he'd be tempted to goad the old man into a fight so he could arrest him for striking an officer—had missed one hell of a fight between the Takagi patriarch and his Golden Child…one that the rest of the building, however, had not missed.

She got to the museum late and was promptly chewed out by Katsura, who had had it with the insurance company and needed Tokio's help in getting the issue resolved. His frazzled nerves had not appreciated being made to wait an hour after their appointment was supposed to have begun. Once she'd had her ass handed to her by the Chairman of the Board, she'd called home to see if Morinusuke was off, and had gotten into a fight with her mother about her leaving home the way she had. Upon finally reaching her brother, they'd gotten into a fight over the same thing. It was past lunch by then, and Tokio was feeling distinctly unloved, so when her friend Teruhime had called her out of the blue and asked if she was free that evening, Tokio had said yes, thinking that talking out her frustrations with her old friend might do her some good, since she'd managed to alienate Enishi and Kamatari with her temper.

So they'd gotten drunk instead.

This was about the point that Saitou and Tokio got into their own little spat, because he didn't like the idea of her being drunk when he wasn't around to make sure dirty old men (or dirty not-so-old men) didn't take advantage of her. Any normal woman might have taken that at face value—that Saitou just wanted to protect her—but Tokio wasn't normal, unfortunately for him, and she took offense to what she viewed as his perception that she was weak and needed a protector. Fifteen minutes of fruitless arguing later, he lost his patience and ordered her to stop reading so goddamn much into everything he said goddamn it, because a good ninety percent of what he said wasn't supposed to be fucking analyzed. There was no hidden meaning, there was no deeper sense—what he said was what he meant, and he'd appreciate it if she stopped putting words he'd never said into his mouth…_damn it_.

She'd eyed him in silence, then churlishly muttered,

"It's not like anything happened."

Which had had started off another round in their little duel that had ended only when she'd informed him that he was too paranoid and suspicious and thought everyone had ulterior motives for everything. He'd paused, then admitted that was true, and also pointed out that that was psycho-analyzing and could she please refrain from doing that too unless she wanted to get into a lot more arguments with him in the very near future.

In the end, they'd sorted things out and moved on, and later that night, with Tokio curled into his side and dead to the world, he drowsily reflected on the differences between Yaso and Tokio, and came to the conclusion that Tokio spoke his language way better than Yaso ever had. Fights with Yaso had always ended in an impasse. Nothing ever got resolved and a week later they were having the same fight all over again. To be fair, though, most of these fights had happened over the phone, since he couldn't go home until he got his furlough, and that made things difficult.

But Yaso had always started crying and making him feel guilty, which didn't really resolve anything. Tokio insisted on going head-to-head with him, not resorting to tears or something else to "win". In fact, he'd only seen her cry maybe three times, and each time she'd been very upset, not angry. An angry Tokio wanted to rip your face off, not bawl, and Saitou thought he preferred that to having her turn into a weepy mess right in the middle of an argument.

And speaking of arguments: he'd called Tokio's mother and made amends after getting the facts. Katsuko appreciated the call and then held him captive while she explained that she was simply upset that her daughter had left home the way that she had, that she had hoped that the day Tokio left would be the day she got married, not because she was at odds with her father.

Somehow or another, Saitou was able to refrain from saying that if that was what Katsuko had been hoping, she'd have been waiting for a damn long time.

He also went to the Nerima Ward precinct, found Morinusuke and beat the crap out of him, and then stood over the younger man and listened to him call and apologize to Tokio. The younger Takagi had just felt a little abandoned—first Sada had left, now Tokio—and had lashed out. Saitou nodded, then cracked the kid over the skull and said that was fine, but if he ever did it again Saitou'd be forced to kill him dead for making Tokio cry. He also expected the younger man to bring whatever else Tokio had left at home to the apartment, which Morinusuke had agreed to, and then smiled faintly through his pain and thanked Saitou for taking such good care of Tokio.

Saitou had snorted and replied that _someone_ had to.

He'd been denied the pleasure of denting Katsura's skull with his knuckles, as the businessman had called up Tokio and apologized for his behavior, and taken her out to lunch to show his sincerity. So that had been a little disappointing, because Saitou had been looking forward to the challenge. But Tokio was happy again at work, so he supposed he could live with it.

Plus, there was always next time, right?

The couple had since fallen back into their routine, the one they'd gotten into when Tokio had started staying over a few nights a week: he'd wake up first and get ready for work or, if he was off, start the tea, before coaxing her into wakefulness and ducking an elbow or a pillow to the face, depending on how disgruntled she was about having to wake up. Once she'd washed the sleep away and he'd gotten tea or coffee into her she was more like her usual self, and apologized if she'd managed to elbow him or whack him. If he had work, he'd leave around eight, and upon arriving at the station twenty minutes later (and ten minutes early, as was his preference), would go straight to his desk, pick up his phone and call the apartment to make sure she'd left for the museum already, because he'd discovered that in addition to being absentminded, it was appallingly easy for her to lose track of time and get distracted doing something else. And he only checked up on her like that because she'd asked him to.

"I know you'll remember," she'd said with a cheeky smile when she'd first asked. "You're the conscientious type."

He always called her around ten to remind her to take her Pill, or if she was in a meeting, he'd tell Sae to interrupt so he could remind her, and for all her teasing him on the matter she never said a cross word about his pushiness on the subject.

When lunchtime rolled around, he'd amble over to the luncheonette and wait for her to come scrambling in. He'd ask if she'd taken her Pill like she was supposed to, to which she'd reply duh, he'd refused to hang up until she did, remember? They'd then exchange their silly banter as usual for ten to fifteen minutes, and then he'd leave with his lunch, telling her about when to expect him home, or, if he didn't have to go in until later or was off, he'd stay and eat with her and they'd continue their silly banter until it was time to go.

If he was working the day shift, he'd head home at the end of his shift, and usually arrive right after her, unless she was staying late for whatever reason. Otherwise, he'd either not be there or be watching the TV when she arrived. Dinner was a mostly equally put together affair, and after-dinner usually found them on the couch in the living room, where Tokio would, as was her custom, use him as a pillow, usually saying something to the effect that come hell or high water, she'd get him suitably squishy. Invariably, she'd fall asleep, and he'd let her be for a little while before nudging her awake and letting her use the shower first. He'd sit out on the balcony and smoke while he waited for his turn.

And then it was bedtime—whether to sleep or conduct…_other activities_…depended on the mood.

Sleep was second on the evening's agenda nine times out of ten.

The routine was subject to change, of course, depending mostly on his schedule, since her days off were pretty much only Mondays and his varied depending on what schedule he got. But part of the good thing about their routine was that it was pretty flexible (aside from maybe one or two habits that were etched in stone, as far as Saitou was concerned), so a couple of changes here or there didn't throw either of their worlds into total chaos.

Or so it had been until today, anyway.

Today had started out in the usual manner, and had continued on this way until he'd gotten back to the station after leaving the luncheonette, whereupon all hell had decided it was a decent enough hour to break loose.

He'd been denied the opportunity to eat his lunch because Hijikata had burst out of his office and told Saitou he had to go to Kabuki-cho _right now_, one of his team was down. Saitou knew exactly who it was—one of the benefits of having such a small team under him—and took Kenshin with him, since the redhead was the only man of his team in the station at the time; Aoshi was still out for lunch and Okita was on assignment. And since Okita wasn't in Kabuki-cho, that left Eiichirou.

Saitou and Kenshin had arrived to find the Shinjuku Ward officers had in their custody a third-rate yakuza, Senkaku, who had stabbed Eiichirou while the kid had been on assignment, undercover, snooping around Kabuki-cho for any leads on a new, yakuza-funded drug ring that had recently come into power in the area.

It had taken a long time to get the whole story, and by the time they had it was six o'clock and no amount of microwaving was going to make his soba—which had been sitting in a Styrofoam cup in a paper bag on his desk since one—appetizing.

And to think: that had been his biggest concern when they'd returned to the station.

The rest of the evening was an indistinguishable blur that didn't become clear—sharply, _brutally_ clear—until…well, _now_, really.

_Dead dead dead._

Eiji was quiet and dry-eyed, his face free of any and all expression. Saitou was personally unfamiliar with grief (he'd never really yet had actual cause to grieve), but it was his understanding that the process wasn't usually quite so…calm. Then again, maybe the kid was still in shock.

Saitou knew he was.

They finally reached their stop, and Saitou and Eiji exited the train and then the station silently, and began walking toward the apartment, and Saitou started wondering—in frantic earnest now—how he was going to explain this to Tokio. Because eventually, the question of what he'd been thinking (assuming he'd been thinking at all, of course) when he'd agreed to take the boy in, even temporarily, was going to come up. Because a kid was _huge_, even if it wasn't your kid.

By the time they reached the apartment, Saitou was no closer to an explanation than he'd been on the train. Which was very unfortunate, since time was up.

"There you are!" Tokio cheerfully said, coming from the kitchen, smiling. "I was wondering where you—"

Her smile froze when she saw Eiji.

There was a long, heavy pause. Then Tokio blinked.

"Hello," she said, sounding surprised. And puzzled. Very very puzzled.

Saitou sighed quietly in relief; no irate demands as to what in the hell was going on—so far so good.

"Tokio, this is Mishima Eiji," he said. "He's going to be staying with us for a while."

She blinked again.

"Oh." He gaze went to Eiji, who was watching her. "Are you hungry Eiji-kun?"

Eiji looked slightly taken aback.

"Uh…yeah?"

Tokio beamed at him.

"Excellent! Please put your things down in the living room, then go wash up, okay?"

"Uh…yes ma'am."

The boy did as he was told, Saitou noticed, though he still looked sort of bemused.

"Hajime," Tokio said, drawing his attention.

"Huh?"

"Were you planning on eating?"

He frowned, confused by the question.

"Well yeah—"

"Then shouldn't you go wash up too?"

He immediately sensed that something was wrong, because she was acting way too happy. There was normal happy, and there was abnormal happy, and right now she was far too happy to actually, in fact, _be_ happy.

Which meant he'd done something.

Which meant he was going to have to figure out what before she _really_ got pissed off at him.

He waited for the kid to wash up before doing so himself, wondering all the while what had bent Tokio out of shape. He figured it probably had to do with Eiji, since up until she'd noticed the boy she'd been regular cheerful, not this weirdo-bizarro cheerful that made him think, uncomfortably, of a serial killer.

He was going out on a limb, but he had an inkling that he knew who her next victim would be.

And it wasn't the kid.

Tokio again surprised him during dinner.

She asked the boy all sorts of questions, like how old he was (ten), what school he was attending (one in Nakano Ward), how he liked it (it was "okay, I guess"), how he liked Tokyo (it was slightly better than okay but not great)…but always, she was careful not to phrase any question in such a way as to make him need to divulge any information about his family unless he wanted to. And when Saitou realized what she was doing, he was so stunned that he forgot that he was supposed to be figuring out what had gotten her nose out of joint.

He'd noticed that she was unusually perceptive—it would have been difficult, hell, _impossible_, to ignore—but she usually had some kind of information to help her get the picture. In this case, he'd given her nothing. All she knew was that the kid was going to be staying with them for a little while. And yet, somehow or another, she had figured out what not to touch.

Being witness to her acumen made him a little smug—his girl was no ninny.

As for the kid, he was responsive, if a little morose (which was completely understandable). He answered Tokio's questions politely and quickly, and Saitou saw some of the older Mishima brother in the younger—same wish to please was there, though Eiji's was tempered by a slight, almost imperceptible insolence. Saitou only caught it because once upon a time, he'd been an insolent little bastard himself—he'd just gotten older and taller, was all.

If Tokio noticed or minded, she didn't let on. She kept up the conversation, and basically ignored Saitou, which sort of relieved and annoyed him all at the same time, but also served to remind him that he had to figure out where he'd screwed up so he'd be able to talk his way out of a fight when it came time for him to face the music.

Eiji was pressed into service at the sink after dinner, drying the dishes and pans after Tokio washed them, and she told him about the museum. For the first time all evening the boy perked up noticeably—he'd heard about the break-in and had watched all the news reports on the subject from start to finish, he told her. Saitou wasn't surprised to hear that, because most of Tokyo—hell, most of Japan—had kept up with that story. It was rare for something that big to happen, and since it involved a family that wielded considerable power—both political and financial—it was even more note-worthy. And with Wu's capture and news of his involvement?

People'd be talking about it for the next thirty years, at least.

Tokio obligingly told the boy about Wu's sneaking into the museum and holding her and her temporary secretary hostage in the store room, though she took great pains never to tell the boy about the Shinuchi when he asked what Wu had been after, only saying that it was a rather valuable artifact the museum had had for some time, and then plunging back into the story before he had a chance to press for more details. The ploy worked and the kid completely forgot about it in lieu of hearing about Tokio's and Misao's rescue, and Enishi and Kamatari's involvement.

"He sounds crazy," Eiji said of Enishi, and Tokio grinned.

"He is," she assured. "He also drives his sister and me crazy with his craziness."

"So he's missin' an ear?" Eiji asked, looking very intrigued by this.

"No, Wu didn't shoot it off, just a piece of it."

"Cool," the boy decided. "Can you tell?"

"If he doesn't comb his hair just right over it, yeah. I'll make him show you sometime," she offered, and Eiji looked positively delighted by this news.

"For real?"

"Uh-huh—he has to listen to me, I'm his boss. Plus, I can hurt him. A lot."

Which Saitou, sitting at the cleared off table and reading the paper, decided was the understatement of the century.

Once the dishes had been washed, dried and put away—Eiji helped with that last part too—Tokio clasped her hands and said,

"Well, we don't have an extra futon, but you can use the fold-out couch in the living room."

"It's comfortable," Saitou added, not looking up from his paper. "I bought it when my brother was living with me a few years back, 'cause he's too much of a princess to sleep on a futon, but he refused to let me buy a cheap couch."

Eiji shrugged, retreating into the sullen silence he'd arrived in.

Tokio didn't let that dampen her mood in the least. She helped Eiji get settled into the living room and told him he could use the bath room first. While he was thus occupied, she set up the fold out couch and put clean sheets on it and provided him with an extra blanket; Saitou, in the mean time, checked his mail, still not entirely sure why Tokio was angry at him; he didn't find out until Eiji had gone to bed and the door to the living room slid shut…when Tokio threw a couch cushion at his head.

He shot away from the table, chair falling backwards.

"Tokio!" he yelped. "What the _hell_ was that for?!"

"I can't believe you!" she returned, the cheery façade gone now and replaced by the "Hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned" look he'd seen once or twice (which meant he was seconds away from death). "_You_ have a_ kid_ and you didn't _tell_ me?! Don't you think that's kind of _important_, you _dumb ass_?!"

His eyes almost fell out of his head.

"WHAT?!" he shouted, incredulous. "Are you out of your _fucking_ mind? What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Eiji-kun!"

"He's not my kid," he protested—he was starting to think he'd been too hasty when he'd decided his girl was no ninny.

"The hell he isn't," she replied. "I can't _believe_ you—what is wrong with you?! Are you even paying Yaso-san child support? If you're taking money away from your own son—"

"_Would you shut the fuck up and let me explain goddamn it_?!" he bellowed, not even caring that Eiji had probably heard this entire, ridiculous argument, and now probably thought Tokio was insane.

Her lips puckered shut in disgust, but she was quiet and right now that was top priority.

"First of all," he said, more than a little annoyed, "I know for a fact that Yaso and I never had a kid, because we were very careful—not nearly as careful as you and I are, but careful. Secondly, even if she had had a kid, it sure as hell wouldn't have been mine, because I barely saw her for most of our marriage. Thirdly, the kid in there doesn't even have my or Yaso's family name—"

"She could have remarried and given Eiji his step-father's name," Tokio interrupted.

"Goddamn it there is no fucking step-father!" Saitou exploded. "Yaso hasn't remarried!"

"Well how do you know?" she shot back.

"Because I'm still paying alimony!"

Tokio paused.

"You are?"

"Yes," he muttered, irritated in that special way only Tokio could inspire.

It was sort of like a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Except not really.

"But," Tokio began, frowning, looking confused, "but I…who…Hajime?"

Saitou sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Here," he said tiredly, taking hold of her wrist and leading her to the table. "Sit."

She did so, watching him expectantly.

"A little while back, Hijikata sent me a new kid, Mishima Eiichirou, and he joined the team. We've been putting him through his paces since then, and two days ago I sent him out on his first assignment, alone. I would have sent Souji with Mishima, except I didn't think there was much risk involved. He was just supposed to be snooping around and gathering up Intel. Today, however, something went awry, and I spent most of the afternoon and evening dealing with the aftermath."

"Where does Eiji-kun come in?" Tokio asked, no longer confused, expression solemn.

"Quiet," he replied out of reflex, "lemme finish. The story, as far as Himura and I could tell, is that somehow or another Mishima tipped off one of the yakuza that he was spying on them and got stabbed to death for his trouble. The kid," he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the living room, "is Mishima's little brother, and the parents've been deceased for a couple of years now."

He watched her face as she absorbed this information.

"I see," she said finally. Pause. "When is Mishima-san's funeral?"

"Two days from tomorrow," Saitou said. "The wake's the night after tomorrow night."

"I'll have to have Enishi cover for me then," she mused thoughtfully.

Saitou frowned.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"You have to go, don't you? As his superior officer?" she returned, raising an eyebrow.

"Well yeah—"

"And Eiji-kun has to go too, as Mishima-san's little brother, doesn't he?"

"I guess—"

"So I can't just leave him with you," she interrupted, looking as if that should have been obvious. "You're no good with children."

He stared at her for a moment, incredulous. Then:

"I am too!" he burst out, offended.

"Says the man who openly admits that he hates other people's children," she dryly said, eyebrow inching higher.

"My nieces and nephews like me," he shot back.

She didn't say anything to that, though a further inching up of her eyebrow told him that if he had believed that this information would change her opinion, he was quite sadly mistaken.

"Anyway," she said, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear, "you don't know the first thing about taking care of a deceased person's family in their time of need."

"And I suppose you do?" he muttered, still smarting over the blow to his pride.

"I got a crash course when my grandparents died," she replied, and he looked over at her, surprised.

"When did that happen?"

"Mama's mother died when I was ten," she said, "and her father died eight years later. Papa's father died three years ago, and his mother when I was a baby, so the only ones I really remember are my mother's parents' and my father's father's funerals."

"Your grandfather, your father's father," he said, "that was in Aizuwakumatsu, right?"

She nodded, smiling faintly.

"You remember?" she asked, obviously realizing that he remembered not seeing her for about a month three years back. When she'd finally come back (much to his relief, though he'd burn in hell before he'd admit it), and he'd asked her what had happened to her that she'd been gone so long, she'd only smiled and said it was family related.

"Inspector, remember?" he replied, both answering and not answering her question.

She only smiled wider.

"Who's taking care of the arrangements?" she asked, letting that vein of conversation die (thankfully).

"I got most of it done," he said. "The precinct's footing most of cost, and Hijikata and I were going through the arrangements."

"I'll finish them then," she said decisively, and he knew better than to try and change her mind. Her gaze narrowed and she watched him thoughtfully. "Hajime?"

"Yeah?"

"Exactly how did you end up with Eiji-kun?"

Uh-oh. He still had no idea how he was going to explain something that he had little to no memory of agreeing to. But it sort of helped that she didn't look mad. In fact, once she'd figured out that Eiji was not his kid (he was still utterly mystified by the connections her mind had made), she'd taken the situation quite well, far better than he'd been expecting.

"Hajime?" she prompted when he stayed quiet.

Saitou decided to tell her the truth, since thinking up outrageous but coherent lies at the drop of a hat wasn't his forte (it was Okita's).

"I don't know," he said. "I guess because I was Mishima's superior, and I sent him to Kabuki-cho…I don't know…seemed like the least I could do was look after his kid brother 'til we could get a hold of some relatives."

She cocked her head and eyed him thoughtfully, then grinned.

"What?" he asked warily.

"Nothing," she said, rising and leaning up and kissing him. "I'm going to take a shower, okay?"

And so saying she strolled past him, still wearing that odd little smile on her face, and headed for the bath room. Saitou watched her, confused for a moment, then went after her, saying,

"Oi, get your ass back over here—'nothing' never means nothing when you say it like that!"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

The best way to sum up today?

Well, "sucked" came immediately to mind.

Today had started out so very normal: Brother had gotten him up and handed him his bento and told him to have a good day and be home before five. He'd walked to school and spent the whole day bored out of his mind while pretending to be interested and engaged. After school he'd goofed around with a few of his less annoying classmates for a while, then walked home.

It was here that the day stopped being normal.

When he'd gotten to the apartment he shared with Brother, a tall brunette in a police uniform had been waiting for him outside the door, face solemn.

"Mishima Eiji?" he'd asked when Eiji had stopped upon catching sight of him.

"Yeah," Eiji had warily replied, and the man had nodded.

"I'm Okita Souji, I work with your brother at the precinct."

Eiji had stopped eyeing the man suspiciously upon hearing his name—Brother had told him a few stories about the bunch of weirdoes he worked with now, and from the sounds of it Okita-san was Head Weirdo.

And then it occurred to him that, Head Weirdo or not, there was no reason for Okita-san to be standing outside his door, waiting for him to get home.

Unless….

"Did something happen to Brother?" Eiji asked, horror creeping through him.

Okita-san's expression never changed. His eyes never flickered, his breath never caught or hitched or failed him.

"Eiji-kun, the chief would like for you to please come down to the precinct." was all he said, and Eiji took that to mean Brother was hurt.

Somehow, the idea of his being _dead_ never occurred to the ten-year-old.

When the chief, a good-looking man with a deep voice and kindly way about him, informed him that Brother had died in the field, Eiji remembered everything around suddenly coming into sharp focus. Every noise was magnified, every feeling was intensified—he was suddenly, painfully, aware of everything.

And here he'd thought that the world would dim the way it had when his parents had died almost three years ago.

Okita-san and then another guy, a younger one named Shinomori Aoshi, had sat with him in the team's office, waiting for their superior to arrive, the one Brother had called the Wolf. Eiji sat at the desk Okita-san told him was his brother's, and Eiji had absently gone through the drawers, only vaguely curious as to what they held. His body felt weird and this new awareness of the world around him was making his head hurt.

He fell asleep against Brother's desk somehow, arms pillowing his head, and was awakened by the sounds of low voices talking, but he didn't immediately open his eyes.

"He's a stupid ass," came a gruff voice he was unfamiliar with.

"Look, I'm just sayin', it might be a bad idea for you to interrogate the guy," Okita-san replied, tone soothing.

"I agree," Shinomori-san said quietly. "With all due respect, sir, you could conceivably kill him as you are now."

"Killing the fuck would be too good for him," the gruff voice snarled.

"Look, Haji, we're all pissed off—" Okita-san began.

"I'm not pissed off, Souji, I'm quite beyond that," Gruff Voice said.

"Just let Himura do it dumb ass!" Okita-san snapped. "Fuck! If you beat the shit out of him we'll have to wait for him to get out of the hospital before we can prosecute his ass for what he did to the kid."

"Speaking of kids," a new voice murmured, close to Eiji. "This one here's awake."

There was a long pause, and then Gruff Voice said,

"Jig's up kid."

"You have no bedside manner," Okita-san muttered.

"Bite me dickwad."

So Eiji opened his eyes and found four men watching him, the closest of whom was a short redhead with amethyst eyes. Beyond him stood Okita-san and Shinomori-san and another guy with squinty eyes and weird antenna-bangs. Eiji surveyed the group for a moment in silence, and then Okita-san coughed and asked,

"Ya hungry?"

Eiji shrugged.

"Not really."

"Wanna see the fucker who did your brother in?" Antenna-bangs asked, and Eiji realized he was Gruff Voice. Then he realized what the guy was asking him.

"Yeah," he said, and Gruff Voice/Antenna-bangs jerked his head and turned and left the room, saying,

"Move your ass then,"

over his shoulder.

Eiji hadn't needed to be told twice.

Senkaku—Okita-san accompanied them and told Eiji the thug's name—was a huge, muscled man with…well, a conehead. He was completely bald, too, and Eiji couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. Being bald already brought you enough notice, but having a weirdly shaped head on top of that?

Eiji and Okita-san sat in a darkened room with an officer who was manning the recording systems, and watched through the glass as Gruff Voice/Antenna-eyes reduced Senkaku into a bawling child. Watching, Eiji knew a moment of shame—this _loser_ had killed Brother? It was embarrassing to think, and Eiji decided Senkaku must have gotten ridiculously lucky, or else had taken credit for someone else's kill, and he said as much to Okita-san. The officer and Okita-san shared a surprised look, and then Okita-san cleared his voice and said,

"No, he's the one who did it all right."

"But he's such a…_loser_!" Eiji burst out. "I mean look at him! He's _crying_! He's _really_ crying! There's snot coming out of his nose and _everything_!"

Okita-san cocked his head.

"Well, to be fair, he's in there with Hajime, and Hajime's scary when he's pissed off."

"Feh—doesn't look so tough," Eiji muttered, and Okita-san stared at him in astonishment, then threw back his head and laughed.

"You've got _balls_, kid," he said, still laughing.

The door to the room that led out into the hallway suddenly banged open, and the redhead that had ratted Eiji out stood in the doorway.

"Is Saitou still in there?" he asked, sounding worried.

"Yup," Okita-san said, still grinning. "He's got Senkaku-san ready to shit himself too."

The redhead sighed wearily.

"Well why aren't you in there?" he asked, sounding exasperated. He entered the room and shut the door, then walked forward to watch through the glass.

"'Cause Senkaku-san really _would_ shit himself then," Okita-san dryly replied, and the redhead rolled his eyes, obviously not finding that nearly as funny as Okita-san had.

The three watched in silence for a few moments more, before Saitou-san abruptly looked at the glass and made a curt gesture, and then Okita-san sighed and scratched his head and said,

"Go in there, okay Himura? Just in case, though I doubt it's really necessary."

The redhead sighed wearily, but nodded, and Okita-san nodded too, then ordered the officer manning the recording systems to shut them off while Himura-san entered the interrogation room.

"How come you sent Himura-san in?" Eiji asked.

Dark brown irises found his gaze out of the corner of the tall man's eyes.

"Because…." He pursed his lips. "Honestly? Because even though he hasn't said anything, Hajime's pissed off at Senkaku right now, and I'm not sure if he'll be able to keep from seriously hurting the guy." He smirked a little humorlessly. "He's pissed at your brother too—Haji had big plans for him."

Eiji's temper flared at that, but Okita-san either didn't notice or just didn't care:

"See, he doesn't usually give newbies like your brother solo assignments right out of the gate. He usually pairs the newbie up with a more experienced team member for assessment. But your brother proved a little smarter than your average newbie, so Haji gave him a solo assignment. Eiichirou-kun getting stabbed on his first solo assignment is sort of like slapping Haji in the face, understand? Like he tossed away a privilege like it wasn't anything special."

"Getting a solo assignment was some great privilege?" Eiji snapped, unable to contain himself any longer.

Okita-san looked over at him, one eyebrow raised.

"No, being a real member of the team was," he replied, calm. "Haji givin' him this assignment was Haji sayin' he was one of us now. We don't get babied under him, but he usually leaves the training wheels on for a while longer. Hell, I've known him for years and I used to work with him before we became cops, but he still wouldn't let me go out on an assignment by myself until like three months had passed—I either had to be with him or Himura because they had more field experience." Okita-san shrugged. "Look, Eiji-kun, I'm not saying we blame your brother for getting killed, we all know that wasn't his fault, okay? We're just pissed off that a good cop didn't get the chance to get better."

Eiji and Okita-san watched each other for a few moments longer, and then Eiji turned his attention back to the glass. And as he watched Himura-san and Saitou-san beat the ever-loving crap out of Senkaku, he decided that he could live with that. He could live with his brother's teammates not being pissed off that he'd died, but being pissed off that Brother hadn't had the chance to prove he was worthy. And any half-formed thoughts of revenge he'd had died when he decided that nothing he could have dreamed up compared to what Himura-san and Saitou-san put Senkaku through.

Once Senkaku had been taken care of, Eiji was taken to the chief's office again, this time by Saitou-san. The two men then tried to decide what to do with the ten-year-old.

"I could just go home," Eiji offered, and was rewarded with a patient smile from the chief and an annoyed glare from Saitou-san.

"That's not possible, son," the chief said.

"Why not?" Eiji asked.

Saitou-san answered him this time:

"Because you're a brat and there's no one else to look after you."

The chief sent Saitou a weary look.

"Saitou-kun," he said.

"I am not a brat," Eiji muttered.

"Well you sure as hell ain't an adult," Saitou-san said.

"Gentlemen," the chief loudly interrupted when Eiji would have snapped back. "This is getting us nowhere." He rubbed his temples, eyes screwed shut, then sighed and looked at Eiji. "Eiji-kun, is there some relative in Tokyo we can call?"

"Mishima's parents are deceased," Saitou-san said before Eiji could, surprising both the boy and the chief. "He never said anything about other living relatives, but even if he had them, they wouldn't be in Tokyo, they'd be in Mishima's home town, Shingetsu Village."

Eiji blinked, stunned at Saitou-san's curt announcement, and at the man's knowledge of his family. Then again, Brother had said the Wolf was one canny son of a bitch.

"So what do you propose?" the chief asked, recovering first.

"I can take in the kid for a few days while we find and contact his relations," Saitou-san said.

Eiji found the horrified shock on the chief's face darkly amusing.

"Are you out of your _fucking_ mind?" the chief demanded. "You _hate_ kids!"

"If he's anything like his brother, I figure I can stand this one for a few days," Saitou-san said, eyeing Eiji.

"Well what if he isn't?!"

Saitou-san cocked his head, thoughtful, then shrugged.

"Then I suppose the brothers Mishima will be heading over to the next world together rather than separately."

Eiji wasn't exactly keen on the idea of staying with Saitou-san, even temporarily. His only other option, though, was to go home to a dark apartment, and whatever his feelings on staying with Saitou-san, Eiji knew he didn't want to go back there just yet. Besides, Brother had admired the guy, and the fact that he'd beat the crap out of Senkaku was definitely a point in his favor.

So in the end, he'd grudgingly agreed to staying with the gruff bachelor (because he was sure no woman on the planet would marry this guy).

Then again, today _had_ been all about surprises.

They'd traveled to the Mishima brothers' apartment so Eiji could pick up about a week's worth of clothing before taking the train back to Bunkyo and walking to Saitou-san's apartment. He'd noticed how the older man's face became progressively grimmer, but had chalked it up to his finally realizing what exactly he'd agreed to.

And then they'd reached the apartment.

Eiji had to admit he'd been astonished by Tokio-san's seemingly magical appearance. And since she was too old to be Saitou-san's kid (and since Saitou had, until today, apparently told one and all that he hated kids), the ten-year-old concluded that she had to be Saitou's wife.

Honestly…wonders never ceased.

She was Saitou-san's polar opposite. She was a small, dainty little thing, with a cheerful way about her and huge dark eyes and a smile that never seemed to dim in the least. It should have been overwhelming, but it wasn't.

He liked her right away, mostly because she didn't ask any questions about why he was there. She asked him about everything but his brother, his family, and as soon as he realized she wasn't going to, he loosened up a little.

Finding out that she was the acting director of the museum that had been robbed back in October or so completely floored him, and he realized why he'd thought she looked a little familiar—he remembered seeing her talk to the press. But she'd never smiled or been so cheerful (not that he blamed her), so he hadn't made the connection right away. He also remembered that her family name had been given as "Takagi", not "Saitou", and wondered why that was. In the end, he'd supposed she and Saitou-san had married only recently—it _had_ been a while since Wu Heishin's arrest, so that wasn't necessarily out of the realm of possibility.

Didn't explain _why_ she'd married the guy, though.

The oddly domestic feel of the apartment made him feel the events of the day a little more, and the shock was almost gone when he overheard (if calling it "overhearing" was even justifiable, since they hadn't exactly been quiet about it) Saitou-san and Tokio-san's argument.

The whole thing had made him laugh, and he'd had to use the pillows to muffle the sound so they wouldn't hear—apartment walls were thin, after all, and he didn't want them to know he'd heard them. Laughter had quickly turned to tears, though, and he'd muffled those too so they wouldn't hear, because he was ashamed of it and didn't want either Saitou-san or his nice (if weird) wife to know.

It was a long time later that he finally stopped crying and curled up in the center of the fold out couch, tired and his head aching a little. He didn't know how long he laid there for, staring dully at the sliding doors, before he heard a soft knock on the door.

"Eiji-kun?" Tokio-san whispered. "Are you asleep?"

He briefly contemplating pretending he was, but he felt lonely so he murmured,

"No."

"Can't sleep?" she asked, still whispering.

"Yeah."

"I bet. I hear today was a long one for you," she said, inching the door open a bit to poke her head in. "Would you like a little tea to help you sleep?"

Not really, but if it kept someone around for a little while longer, that was fine by him:

"Okay."

He followed her into the main room and sat down at the table to watch her move around the kitchen, with only the range light on. Her hair was mussed and she was wearing a long black robe and no socks or shoes.

"I couldn't sleep either," she confided, voice still a whisper. "Sometimes my mind won't leave the office even if the rest of me has."

He made a soft noise of acknowledgement, head propped up by his left fist.

"And I was going to watch TV," she continued, "but then I remembered that we had a guest in the living room and it would be rude to wake you up. So then I thought I'd make myself some tea, and then I wondered if you were still awake, and well, here we are."

Despite himself, Eiji grinned a little; the kitchen clock said it was well past one in the morning, but Tokio-san still sounded as cheerful as she had five hours ago.

She kept up the cheery, whispered monologue, complaining about how Saitou-san never had trouble sleeping and he never woke up in the middle of the night and it was nice to have some company for a change….

Once the tea was done, she joined him at the table and they drank it in companionable silence before Tokio-san murmured,

"You holding up okay?"

It took him a moment to realize what she was referring to, and only because she'd been so nice to him and treated him so well before she'd found out why he was there did he answer her truthfully:

"I miss Brother."

"Hm," was her response, gaze falling to her cup. "Well, that's to be expected. Hajime…told me that your parents are gone too."

"Almost three years ago."

"So it was just you and your brother."

"Hm."

There was a long pause, and then Tokio-san asked,

"Listen…I, uhm, offered to take care of your brother's funeral…and I was wondering if…you, uhm, you were okay with that?"

Eiji looked over at her, and was surprised to find her watching him nervously.

"I mean, I've helped my mama with my grandparents' funerals, so I know what to do and how to do it, and I figured, it would be better if someone who knew what they were doing was taking care of things instead of a bunch of guys who'd just lost one of their own…and you're so young it didn't seem right to have you do anything, but he's still your brother and…I just wondered if you were okay with me doing it."

Eiji blinked.

"It's okay," he said, and she watched him cautiously.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "You were nice to me. And…you know…I don't mind. Brother took care of things when Mom and Dad died, so I wouldn't be able to help much anyway."

Tokio-san beamed at him.

"Okay," she said.

Eiji found himself sending her a tentative smile back, and they went back to their tea. A few moments later, he asked,

"So…how'd your mom do your grandparents' funerals?"

She looked thoughtful.

"Well, it's gonna be a little different, since your brother's MPD, but I was thinking Buddhist style would be the easiest."

"There's more than one way?" Eiji asked, not expecting this information.

Tokio-san nodded.

"There's mostly Shinto style and Buddhist style, though most of the funerals you go to are Buddhist, unless the family's Christian."

They talked over the funeral arrangements for the next hour. In the back of his mind, Eiji supposed that this was a pretty dark conversation for him, but he didn't really mind. When his parents had died, he'd watched Brother put his grief aside and look at things practically, and he figured if Brother could do it, he could damn well try, at least.

It helped immensely that Tokio-san's including him in the decision of the funeral arrangements made that easier for him to accomplish, whether she was aware of it or not.

Tokio-san finally decided that they should go back to sleep, and Eiji agreed—he was yawning and staying awake was taking a lot of effort.

"Hajime told me you weren't going to school tomorrow," she mentioned as he helped her wash up the cups and the teapot they'd used.

"I'm not?" he asked, this being news to him.

"Yeah, he said he'd call up your principal tomorrow morning and explain you were going to be out for a while—I'm supposed to go pick up your classwork and homework from your teacher tomorrow afternoon," she said.

He was bemused by this announcement.

"How come?" he asked.

"You need a break after today," she replied matter-of-factly. "And since your brother's funeral's going to be coming up soon, we figure it's okay for you to miss a little school. And since you'll be making up the work, you won't fall behind."

Eiji was quite surprised at this turn of events, and totally…well, amazed, by the knowledge that _Saitou-san_—gruff, prickly Saitou-san—had engineered this little holiday.

"So, I was thinkin', since you won't be going to school, you could come to work with me so you don't have to stay here alone and bored all day long," she continued.

Eiji considered her words and decided she was wrong—he wouldn't be alone and bored, he'd be alone and grieving, and that was much worse.

"I'd like that," he said, and she grinned.

"Great," she said, whispering still but somehow able to sound enthusiastic. "You may have to get up a little earlier than you usually do, though. I usually don't go in until nine thirty, since we don't open until ten, but with all the craziness with the break-in, I've had to go in earlier."

Eiji shrugged.

"'S okay," he said. His eyes narrowed as a thought occurred. "So…does that mean you'll make Yukishiro-san show me his ear tomorrow?"

"Absolutely," she immediately replied. "Even if I have to put him in a headlock."

Eiji's eyebrows rose.

"You can do that?"

"I _am_ the Acting Director."

"No, I mean…a short, well, _girl_ like you can put him in a headlock? What is he, old or something?"

Tokio-san sent him a wicked grin.

"He's two years younger than me," she informed him. "And I can totally put him in a headlock. Tell you what—I'll put him in one tomorrow so you can see." Her grin widened. "Whether he listens to me about showing you his ear or not."

And that was when Eiji decided his stay with the Saitous was going to be…_interesting_.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 33: Babe In The Woods:_

"You're staying with Saitou?" he finally asked.

"Yes sir," Eiji replied, and Enishi-san whistled.

"You have my sympathies," he said, completely serious, and then let out a loud yelp and ducked the paperweight Tokio-san lobbed at his head.

---

For some weird reason he couldn't grasp and that everyone refused to explain, his ordering soba made Saitou-san throw back his head and laugh, and made Tokio-san and Shiori-san groan and hang their heads.

---

"Ain't she a good ole girl?" Okita-san asked with a fond look in Tokio-san's direction. "If I didn't know for a fact that she was so stuck on Haji, and that Haji'd, you know, eviscerate me, I'd totally try to take her from him."

---

"Congratulations," Okita said dryly, "it's a boy."

"Gatotsu to the head, fucktard." Saitou snapped back.


	33. Babe In The Woods

**A/N:** Gah, been a while, huh? That was partly college (which is evil), and the nature of this chapter; since I'm neither Japanese nor Buddhist, I had to do a little research on Japanese funerals to write with some semblance of credibility. It also creeped me out a little, because I started this chapter two days before my family member passed on—talk about timing, huh? So yes, sort of time-consuming and difficult chapter to get out (so hard to find reliable info…lucky Mr. Billy Hammond once again came through for me). This one's a little gloomy, just so you know, but I think it ends on a nice note.

**Notice:** Saitou's interaction with Eiji is based pretty much on my daddy's interaction with my siblings and me. 'Cause when I think of Saitou as a parent/guardian, I think he would be a lot like my daddy. So be afraid—be very afraid….

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

koden: condolence money; at Japanese funerals, people who come to pay their respects to the deceased will bring a special envelope with anywhere between the yen equivalent of 30 USD to 300 USD, depending on the relation of the mourner to the deceased.

kaimyo: a Buddhist name bought by the family for the deceased; it is supposed to prevent the deceased from returning every time his name is called (random, useless fact: the real Saitou Hajime does not have a kaimyo—when his family asked him about it before he died, he opted not to have one).

butsudan: household Buddhist altar; a small, shuttered case which usually contains an image of Buddha surrounded by photographs of and mortuary tablets with the names of the deceased. It may also hold other items, incense, rice offerings, etc. Buddhism, not Shinto, is "associated with death and ancestor veneration" in Japan (info from _The World of Ash_ Web site).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Japanese funerals: It took a while to find credible information on this, but I did eventually. A few notes before we begin: price gouging by funeral homes in Japan is a huge problem, or it was—recently, that's been changing, as a lot of these places are losing business to their cheaper (and in some cases foreign-owned/-operated) competitors. That said, most of what you'll read in this chapter is true as far as I know (coughcoughDISCLAIMERcoughcough); anyone who begs to differ is totally free to.

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Thirty-Three: Babe In The Woods_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It was really weird how smoothly Eiji was assimilated into Saitou-san and Tokio-san's routine.

As promised, the next day a very groggy Eiji had been awakened by Tokio-san and fed breakfast, which he blearily consumed without really seeing. He knew from last night that she was a good cook (way better than Brother), but he hadn't appreciated it until now—it was comforting to know that despite not being able to see your food very clearly, you weren't in danger of being poisoned by a bad meal.

Saitou-san left soon after, and Tokio-san was dressed by then, only needing her hair and makeup to be completely ready. She attended to that while he got dressed, and when the phone rang and she answered it, he heard a rather amusing snippet of conversation between her and Saitou-san where he warned her not to get entertained and she called him a nag.

They didn't do any schmoopy couple stuff when they hung up, which both relieved and intrigued him, but he supposed it made sense, since Saitou was possibly the most un-schmoopy person on the planet.

And possibly within the known universe.

And maybe even in the unknown universe(s) too, depending.

But that's a different story that doesn't have anything to do with this one.

Tokio-san and Eiji left the apartment and walked to the museum, where she cheerfully greeted everyone she came into contact with. He was introduced to her secretary, Sae, who didn't look at all surprised to see him, which Eiji decided was interesting—did Tokio-san make a habit of bringing orphans to work with her?

Sae provided Tokio-san with a cup of coffee and a muffin, and provided Eiji with an apple Danish and orange juice, and Eiji decided that he could get used to this.

Not long after they'd settled in with their food (and mail, in Tokio-san's case), the door of the office burst open and a little woman dressed in a mauve blouse and tight black pants and black leather boots exploded into the room, wailing,

"Tokio-chan! Enishi-chan won't let me buy the paint I want!"

in a manly voice.

…Er, well, as manly as a man could sound when he was whining, anyway.

Upon hearing that this was the famed Honjou Kamatari, Police Brawler Extraordinaire, Eiji immediately asked him to tell him about his role in Wu's capture, and Kamatari-san, upon learning who Eiji was, eagerly related the tale (and embellished outrageously, if Tokio-san's version was the truth). Tokio-san sat, amused, and went through her mail while Kamatari-san retold events as he had _decided_ they should have gone. At the conclusion of the tale, Eiji looked over at Tokio-san and said,

"You told it different."

"Of course she did," Kamatari-san said patiently. "Tokio-chan was being held hostage. She didn't see it, she heard about it later."

"Indeed—from far more reliable sources, too," Tokio-san said, eyes on her computer screen and amusement coloring her tone.

Kamatari-san sent her an insulted look and Eiji wondered where, exactly, he was, because it seemed more and more like he'd somehow ended up in _The Twilight Zone_.

Quite soon after this, The Man Himself, Yukishiro Enishi, entered Tokio-san's office, also bellowing about the paint Kamatari-san wanted to buy, saying it was a frivolous waste and he wasn't going to stand for it _goddamn it_ and who in the seven hells was the kid and why was he watching Enishi like he'd never seen a guy with his arm in a sling before?

Eiji, however, wasn't staring at the arm in the sling but the white head of the man wearing said sling. Now, he knew that Tokio-san wasn't all that old, because she was still pretty like the teenagers that went to the high school in the neighborhood he and Brother had been living in, but he also knew she wasn't as young as those teenagers, 'cause she was too old to be Saitou-san's kid, so that was out. But she'd also said Enishi-san was younger than her. In which case she was either lying her head off, or Enishi-san was a freak who dyed his hair white for some freak reason.

And since he was pretty sure that Tokio-san wasn't a liar-liar-pants-on-fire….

Tokio-san introduced them, and Enishi-san eyed him, lips pursed.

"You're staying with Saitou?" he finally asked.

"Yes sir," Eiji replied, and Enishi-san whistled.

"You have my sympathies," he said, completely serious, and then let out a loud yelp and ducked the paperweight Tokio-san lobbed at his head. "What the fuck, you crazy bitch?!"

"Don't say things like that to him!" Tokio-san ordered, glaring at him.

"It's the truth! Your boyfriend's a fucking psychopath!"

Oh. So Tokio-san and Saitou-san weren't married. Okay, not a problem…though Eiji was now very seriously wondering what the hell Tokio-san was doing with gruff, prickly and apparently _psychotic_ Saitou-san, evidently of her own free will.

Then again, he was ten—what did he know?

As promised, Tokio-san put Enishi-san into a headlock (with Kamatari-san's blessing, as he was still very much put out with Enishi-san's refusal to buy the paint he wanted), and Eiji was surprised she was as fast and efficient as she was.

"Did you ever take a martial art, Tokio-san?" Eiji asked.

"Until about a year ago," she said, grinning and digging her knee into Enishi-san's back a little more and making him grunt. She looked down at her captive and her smile became slightly more evil. "Who's your momma, eh Enishi?"

"Go to hell, bitch," Enishi-san snarled, then grunted in pain when Tokio-san's knee found still more purchase in his back. "Watch it, damn it! You wanna fuckin' paralyze me or what?"

"Oi Tokio-chan," Kamatari-san said, suddenly looking very serious and worried. "Don't you dare paralyze my little Enishi-chan or I'll never speak to you again. If you paralyze him, he'll be useless to me."

Enishi-san paused in his struggles to get free, watched Kamatari-san for a moment thoughtfully, then nodded and said,

"Fuck it, Tokio—break me like a toothpick."

Tokio-san rolled her eyes and let go of him, moving to kneel down beside him.

"Get up stupid," she ordered.

"Traitor," Enishi-san muttered, sitting up and rubbing his back. "Y'know, I should get you to crack my back one of these days—bet you'd be great."

"Maybe," she replied noncommittally. She held out her hand. "Let's see it."

He obligingly slipped his arm from his sling and surrendered it to her. She removed the brace on it and inspected it, then started to massage the hand.

Enishi-san grimaced at first, then let out a long, controlled breath and schooled his features.

"It wouldn't hurt so much if you'd do what the doctor said," Tokio-san chided.

"It's hard to massage it myself," Enishi-san replied, an edge to his voice, eyes riveted to the carpet.

"Which is why I end up doing it for you," Tokio-san muttered.

"You're better at massages than Enishi-chan," Kamatari-san lazily volunteered from the seat beside Eiji; the small man's legs were stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, arms dangling over the sides of the armrests, watching the proceedings with a deceptively apathetic gaze.

"How would you know, ya fruity bastard?" Enishi-san snapped, glaring in Kamatari-san's direction. "I never gave you no damn massage, _and _I never will, either."

Kamatari-san pouted.

"So mean," he murmured, pretending to be gravely wounded by the words. "To answer you despite your cruelty, however, I know because Tokio-chan's massages can only be beaten by a professional masseuse, and even then it's close."

Enishi-san considered the words, then grunted in what Eiji assumed was agreement, as he didn't say anything else on the matter.

The boy thought the three of them were an odd bunch—his cheery temporary guardian, the white haired man and the girly guy. Tokio-san had told him that Kamatari-san and Enishi-san were some of her best friends, and he guessed he could see that.

Still weird, though.

Tokio-san finished Enishi-san's hand, then asked him to show Eiji his ear, and the white haired man sighed wearily but did as ordered. Eiji inspected the ear and declared it "so cool" to the room at large, making Tokio-san and Kamatari-san grin.

"Yeah, well, at the time, it hurt like a bitch," Enishi-san said, carefully placing his hair over the deformed ear.

Eiji spent most of the next hour with Kamatari-san, who insisted on showing him around the museum, which prompted Enishi-san and Tokio-san to accuse the smaller man of ditching his work. Kamatari-san didn't bother to try and deny it, only winking at the two (and blowing a kiss to Enishi-san, who bristled with indignation at the gesture) and then put an arm around Eiji and skipped out of Tokio-san's office with him in tow.

Tokio-san's museum was small but had a few impressive artifacts here and there. Kamatari-san explained how the Kiyosato family had started it up twenty-nine years ago, in 1978, because it had been a long-time dream of the Kiyosato patriarch, Taro, to open a museum.

"I have no idea _why_," Kamatari-san said with a light shrug as they stood in front of a complete suit of samurai armor from the early Edo era, "but rich people are eccentric like that, I suppose."

"I guess it's cool to have all this stuff," Eiji said, totally in awe of the armor he was standing in front of. He looked up at Kamatari-san (who was only short compared to Enishi-san, because he was a couple of inches taller than Tokio-san). "You guys got any katana?"

Kamatari-san rolled his eyes.

"Boys," he muttered, shaking his head and flipping his hair with a way best described as dramatic. "Honestly, that's all they think about." He sighed and met Eiji's gaze; the boy had quickly realized that Kamatari-san liked to showboat, but if he waited, patiently, he'd get an answer.

"Yes, we have four or five," Kamatari-san said making an absent gesture with his hand. "But they're all in storage now. They were in the exhibit that got vandalized."

Eiji frowned.

"Man," he muttered, disappointed. He went back to examining the armor in front of him.

There was a long pause, and then Kamatari-san said lightly,

"I don't have the necessary clearance to take you through the storage rooms, but Tokio-san does. Might want to try her and see what she says—and since she seems to like you, I doubt the answer will be no."

"Yeah?" Eiji asked, gaze swinging back up to Kamatari-san, who sent him a mysterious smile and winked.

"Maybe," was all he said, and they continued on with the tour.

Tokio-san came looking for him a while later, and told him she was going to go run a few errands pertaining to his brother's funeral, and did he want to come? Eiji was a little surprised by the offer, but appreciated it all the same, and he took her up on it. So they left the museum and went first to the funeral home, where Tokio got into a fight—an honest-to-god fight—with the director, who was not only charging an outrageous amount of money for the service, but had added things that neither Chief Hijikata nor Tokio-san had ever asked for to the bill. In the end, Tokio-san said she'd be taking Brother's body somewhere else where they treated the deceased and the deceased's family with respect, and scolded the man, saying that he should be ashamed of his treatment of a fallen member of the MPD. The director tried to change her mind, but Tokio-san walked out of the office without a backward glance, Eiji following in her wake and a little stunned by the show he'd been treated to.

"Tokio-san?" he asked when they were on the street again. "Why did you do that?"

"Because that pompous ass isn't going to charge us for things we don't want!" Tokio-san replied, still obviously quite irate. "Taking advantage of people like that—it's despicable!"

"But…." Eiji swallowed with difficulty around the lump in his throat. "What about Brother?"

Tokio-san paused, then looked down at him for several moments in silence. She knelt so that they were more or less eye level and said,

"Eiji-kun, don't worry. I have every intention of giving your brother the ceremony he deserves, okay? I promise, really. But I'm not going to be taken advantage of either." She smiled faintly. "Sometimes, funeral homes try to take advantage of the family of the deceased. We're such a polite society that we're hesitant to speak up when we're being overcharged for our loved one's funeral, because we don't want to seem cheap or maybe because we're hurting so bad we don't really…well, we don't really notice until later.

"That happened to us when my father's father died. And Papa got very upset with the funeral director and we took my grandfather's body somewhere else, where we weren't being shafted and were charged a reasonable amount of money to see Grandfather off. It's okay to haggle the price but if the director won't budge or he's being a butthead like that guy was," she said, gesturing to the funeral home down the street, "it's perfectly okay to go find someone else who won't try to take advantage of you. Understand?"

Eiji nodded.

"I'm sorry I didn't ask you before I decided to drop that home," she added sincerely. "Do you want to go back? Because I will if that's what you want."

"I trust you Tokio-san," Eiji said softly, and she smiled at him.

"Thank you," she murmured, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. She rose and smiled down at him. "Now come on—let's find some honest people in this town to help us take care your brother."

They ended up at a funeral home run by a Swedish man, and despite the fact that his Japanese was terrible and his English was only slightly better, and Tokio-san's English, while reasonably good, did not allow for quick grasping of hopelessly butchered words, they were able to get the services they wanted at almost half what the other funeral home was charging, or so Tokio-san said in obvious approval. The Swede even took them through the home on a tour, and Eiji gave the place his approval. It wasn't a large place, but it was well-kept and nicely furnished, and Eiji didn't think it would be at all dishonorable for Brother's funeral to take place here. The Swede was very nice and upon hearing who Brother had been said it would be a great honor to his business to take care of a member of the MPD.

After leaving the funeral home, they went out in search of a new temple, as the Swede's home was not affiliated with a temple like the other funeral home had been, and found one that would be willing to take Brother's service at the Swede's home. It was a little more expensive than Tokio-san had been expecting, but it wasn't unreasonable, all things considered, so she contracted a priest for his services and gave the temple clerk Chief Hijikata's contact information, since he was taking care of the money end of the arrangements.

That taken care of, Tokio-san asked him if he had a black suit, and upon hearing the answer was no, took him shopping for one, and then caught a late lunch in Ginza before going back to the museum.

While Tokio-san attended to some pressing museum business, Eiji spent an hour with Enishi-san, whom Tokio-san had given clearance to take him through the storage rooms so he could see the katana. He also inspected a very banged up cannon, and got to hear the story of what part it played the day Wu had held Tokio-san hostage.

At three thirty he and Tokio-san traveled to Nakano Ward, to his school, to pick up a week's worth of homework and classwork and his teacher's condolences.

"Do you have any friends you want to come to the wake?" Tokio-san asked as they exited the school, and Eiji shook his head.

"I don't really have friends here, just kids I talk to who're okay," he replied with a shrug.

"Hm," was all Tokio-san said in reply, and they went back to Bunkyo and to the apartment after stopping at the museum so Tokio-san could pick up some paperwork.

Saitou-san arrived at the apartment not five minutes after they did.

"You missed lunch today," he said to Tokio-san in lieu of the more traditional "I'm home."

"I was very very busy," she replied, leaning up to peck him on the mouth; Eiji rolled his eyes and returned to looking over his classwork.

"With what?" Saitou-san asked as he set his keys and wallet and badge and gloves down on the key rack by the door.

"Mishima-san's funeral arrangements," she said, then told him about it.

He looked incredulous upon hearing that she'd gotten into a fight with the director of the first funeral home and asked her if she was out of her freaking mind. She didn't dignify the inquiry with an answer, choosing instead to completely ignore that he'd spoken at all and continue her recitation of the day's events by telling him about the Swede's funeral home.

Saitou-san helped Tokio-san put dinner together, the two of them bickering over the way she'd handled the situation with the first funeral home director while they worked, but in the end, Saitou-san gave his approval that at least she'd been smart enough not to let herself be bullied into paying more than she should.

Tokio-san again dominated the conversation at dinner, drawing Eiji into it and making Saitou-san participate enough that he couldn't be accused of being antisocial. After dinner, Eiji helped Tokio-san wash the dishes again and Saitou-san sat at the table and went through the mail. Once the dishes were done, Tokio-san sat at the table with her paperwork and Eiji sat down with his classwork and the three of them went about their business silently for a time, before Tokio-san, without looking up from her work, told him he ought to take a shower, it was getting late and he should go to bed soon.

So he obligingly did as he was told and within three hours, he had settled down on the fold out couch in the living room again. He stared at the roof for a very long time before he heard a door slide open somewhere in the apartment and looked toward the living room door, waiting. Sure enough, there came a knock and Tokio-san's voice asking if he was asleep.

They had tea again and stayed up for an hour with it, occasionally talking, mostly sitting together quietly and drinking their tea.

Eiji supposed there were worse people he could have been staying with.

The next day was a little different; he didn't spend the day with Kamatari-san or Enishi-san, but stayed in Tokio-san's office with her and dutifully finished his classwork and started on his homework while she made phone calls and threatened people and signed papers and scheduled meetings and dealt with any number of crises as they arose. At lunch, they walked to a luncheonette and met with Saitou-san, who acknowledged Eiji with a nod and asked Tokio-san if she'd taken her pill, which Eiji thought was a weird question to ask (what pill?) but didn't say anything.

The luncheonette owner, Shiori-san, was very nice and told him to order whatever he wanted, it was on the house because he was the little brother of such a great guy, and Eiji had to work hard to swallow around the lump in his throat. He ended up ordering soba, because he was shy about taking the woman up on her offer and also didn't think he'd be able to eat anything thicker than the buckwheat noodles and broth.

For some weird reason he couldn't grasp and that everyone refused to explain, his ordering soba made Saitou-san throw back his head and laugh, and made Tokio-san and Shiori-san groan and hang their heads.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful (Eiji was learning that "normal" meant something entirely different in the museum from what it meant in the outside world), and he and Tokio-san again sat up for an hour over tea, though he noticed that Tokio-san looked really tired and seemed like she was having more trouble staying awake.

The following day was the day of the wake, which wouldn't take place until that evening, and consequently Eiji was feeling somber. He spent that day in the company of a large man named Anji-san, and followed him around while he and his crew went about setting the Early Meiji Era exhibit to rights. He was thankful for it, because Anji-san's teaching which tools were used for what and showing him how to use some of the less dangerous ones so he could help the crew kept his mind occupied. When Tokio-san came to fetch him so they could go to the luncheonette for lunch, he told her he wasn't hungry and asked if it would be all right if he stayed with Anji-san. Since the big man in the white bandanna didn't mind, Tokio-san left him there, though she did bring back a Styrofoam cup of soba for him, which he ate a while later when his stomach felt a little too empty for comfort.

They left the museum early again, and went back to the apartment to shower and change into wake appropriate attire. While Tokio-san was trying—in vain—to tie his tie, Saitou-san arrived and took over for her, then went to get ready himself. The boy watched Tokio-san sit at the table while she put on her makeup, then, at her urging, followed her into her and Saitou-san's bedroom and sat on the bed to watch Saitou-san tie his tie without a mirror, which was interesting to watch because it came out perfect and the older man didn't screw up once.

They left the apartment silently, Eiji taking up Tokio-san's hand because he was struck by a sudden, painful fright that he'd lose them in the crowd, despite the fact that Saitou-san was basically herding them in the direction they were supposed to go in.

Neither adult said a word about his sudden clinginess, for which he was thankful.

They were greeted by the Swede himself, who was also dressed in a black suit and looked quite nice. Eiji stuck close to Tokio-san's side and didn't let go of her hand.

Outside of the parlor they'd taken out for Brother's wake, there was a table set up with two suitably somber people—a man and a woman, both Japanese—there to greet people and make sure they signed the registry book and presented their koden. Tokio-san murmured to him that after the funeral, the book and the money would belong to him, though he probably wouldn't have access to the money until he was of age. He watched Saitou-san sign the registry for himself and Tokio-san, and then present an envelope with a thin black and white ribbon wrapped around it to the man, who handed it to the woman. She took note of how much was in the envelope (Tokio-san's neat penmanship in a corner gave that information), and then wrote it down next to their names.

Eiji noticed, with no small amount of surprise, that it was a substantial amount of money.

The parlor itself was all set up and appropriately solemn. There was a big picture of Brother set up with flowers on either side, and Eiji squeezed Tokio-san's hand, mouth dry and stomach knotting painfully. She squeezed back gently but didn't say anything.

He balked when he saw the casket and didn't want to go anywhere near it, not even to make an incense offering the way he was supposed to in the incense urn on the table placed before it. Tokio-san murmured that he wouldn't have to make his until later, while the priest was reading the sutra, which calmed his nerves (and stomach)…until it occurred to him that he would have to make this offering in front of other people. A whole room full of other people. He paled a little at this and asked Tokio-san,

"Do I have to?"

"Yes," was the gentle but firm reply. "You're his brother, Eiji-kun. You, more than anyone else, must make an offering."

Eiji stared down at the floor in silence, then whispered,

"Could you go with me?"

"Sure," she said immediately, kindly. She paused, then shook his hand a little and waited for him to look back up at her before saying, "Here, I have an idea—how about you go with Saitou-san and me and watch us do our offering? So you can see it and you'll know what to do later, okay?"

"But you'll still go up with me when I have too?" he asked, worried.

"Absolutely," she said. "I'll still go up with you."

Eiji swallowed dryly, eyes flickering to the thus far silent Saitou-san.

He looked about as welcoming as the Grim Reaper, but he nevertheless nodded his acquiescence to Tokio-san's suggestion, and Eiji's gaze returned to her.

"Okay," he managed to get out, and the three of them approached the incense urn and Eiji watched them as they bowed, rang the altar bell and made their offerings, three times each, and prayers, their movements practiced. He supposed they must have done this a lot—especially Saitou-san, being a policeman in one of the more dangerous departments and all.

Deciding that hadn't been as bad as he'd been expecting, he next hesitantly asked if he could see Brother, since the casket was standing open. Tokio-san and Saitou-san exchanged an indecipherable look, but then Tokio-san looked back down at him and nodded, and the two of them went forward, Eiji with a death grip on her hand; either she didn't mind or was too polite to say anything.

At first glance, Brother looked like he was sleeping. But Brother had never slept in his police uniform, or with his hands clasped over his chest. He'd also never worn makeup or slept in a coffin. The thing that freaked Eiji out the most, though, were Brother's hands—they didn't look real. They looked fake, like they were plastic—one of those gag hands they sold at joke shops.

He felt the blood leave his face and abruptly backed up and accidentally stepped on Tokio-san's foot, but she didn't mind, instead calmly turning them around and herding him back to where Saitou-san was standing, hands in his pockets. When they reached the tall man's side, one of his hands left his pocket and landed heavily but kindly on Eiji's head.

Not long thereafter, the Swede and an assistant came over and carefully closed Brother's casket, and the tight feeling in Eiji's chest increased. It was stupid and dumb, because Brother was dead and wouldn't care, but he couldn't shake the idea that Brother wouldn't like being shut up in the box, no matter how nice it had looked.

Tokio-san silently led him to the seats set out in front of the casket and altar and they sat down together, her hand still in his.

"There's some food and things in the next room over," Tokio-san said. "You want to see if—"

Eiji shook his head violently, staring down at his knees, not trusting his voice or stomach not to betray him.

Tokio-san didn't say anything for a bit, though he could still feel her watching him, and then she lightly squeezed his hand and murmured,

"Do you need to use the restroom, Eiji-kun?"

He shook his head again, more gently this time, still staring down at his knees. Tokio-san made a soft sound of acknowledgment, then gently switched hands so she could put an arm around him, and he gratefully leaned into her.

People began arriving, men Eiji recognized vaguely as having been at the precinct the day he'd been there. He relaxed a little when Chief Hijikata showed up, the sight of a familiar face comforting, and felt even better when Okita-san and Himura-san and Shinomori-san, who was accompanied by a short girl with green eyes, arrived. They made their offerings and then came straight over to where he and Tokio-san were sitting and stayed there.

Okita-san ruffled his hair affectionately.

"Hey kid," he said with a faint smile. "How ya been? Tokio-san been takin' care of ya good?"

"Yeah," he said quietly.

"Ain't she a good ole girl?" Okita-san asked with a fond look in Tokio-san's direction. "If I didn't know for a fact that she was so stuck on Haji, and that Haji'd, you know, eviscerate me, I'd totally try to take her from him."

Tokio-san smiled and rolled her eyes, and Eiji managed a weak smile, and earned another hair-ruffling from Okita-san.

"Hello Eiji-kun," Himura-san greeted with a bow. "Tokio-dono."

"Thank you for coming Himura-san," Tokio-san said, bobbing her head in return, since bowing wasn't possible.

Himura-san sent her a small, soft smile, but didn't say anything in return.

Shinomori-san and the girl bowed in unison to Eiji and Tokio-san, both of whom bobbed their heads in return, and then Shinomori-san straightened and reached into his jacket and produced a badge and gave it to Eiji.

"This is your brother's badge, Eiji-kun," he said, hands now going into his pockets. "We decided it was appropriate for you to have it."

Eiji looked down at the badge in his hand. All it had on it was Brother's rank, since the MPD didn't assign badge numbers or put officers' names on their badges, to maintain solidarity and make it hard to single out any one officer, Brother had explained. But he didn't care about all that—this was Brother's badge and that was what was important.

"Thank you Shinomori-san," he said quietly around the ever-growing lump in his throat, bowing his head. Tokio-san's arm tightened ever so slightly around him in a one-armed hug that he appreciated beyond words.

"You're welcome Eiji-kun," Shinomori-san replied, bowing again.

The girl stepped forward and bowed.

"Hello Eiji-kun, I'm Makimachi Misao," she said. "I'm also a member of the Bunkyo precinct, security department."

Eiji bobbed his head, and at a subtle nudge from Tokio-san quietly said,

"Thank you for coming to Brother's…wake, Makimachi-san."

She smiled.

"You can call me Misao, Eiji-kun, and it's no trouble—your brother was a good officer and a great guy. I'm proud to be here."

The priest arrived not long thereafter and was offered tea by Saitou-san, since Eiji made it pretty near impossible for Tokio-san to do it. The priest was nice enough, greeting and speaking in a friendly tone with the group seated in the front row at large, and with Eiji in particular, who felt shy and mostly nodded when he was addressed. The room filled steadily, and once everyone had found a seat—Eiji thought the entire criminal investigations department must have attended, there were so many people—the priest turned to the altar, bowed, lit the incense and began reading a sutra. It was now that Eiji's turn to offer incense to Brother came, and he squeezed Tokio-san's hand, nervous and unsure. She squeezed back reassuringly, and as promised she went up with him and stood with him while he bowed and made his offering—three times, just like he'd seen Tokio-san and Saitou-san do earlier—then bowed and walked back to where Saitou-san and Okita-san and Himura-san and Shinomori-san and Misao-san sat, in place of relatives.

It should have maybe saddened him, or shamed him that he had no relatives to sit with him. But, he supposed when he sat back down and felt Saitou-san's hand come to rest on top of his head again, and felt Tokio-san's hand gently squeeze his, having these people who had thought so well of Brother and taken care of and watched after him for Brother…having them in his relatives' place wasn't so bad.

The priest finished his sutra and took his leave after paying his respects to Eiji in particular and the first row in general, and people followed his example (Eiji noticed with vague interest that they were given small gifts by the twosome manning the table out front as they left), until only the first row was left.

"If you guys wanna go home, we'll stay the night," Okita-san offered, gesturing to himself and Himura-san.

"Us too," Misao-san said, and Shinomori-san nodded.

"It's up to you," Saitou-san said, looking at Eiji. "You wanna stay the night or you wanna go back to the apartment?"

Eiji looked up at Tokio-san, who was also waiting for him to decide. He turned his gaze back to Saitou-san.

"I wanna stay."

Saitou-san nodded, and Okita-san grinned and rose and said,

"I'll be back."

He was as good as his word, coming back with a crate covered by a towel.

"Souji, what the hell," Saitou-san began, annoyed.

"Tonight," Okita-san interrupted, raising a hand and looking solemn and silly all at once when he uncovered the crate with a flourish to reveal several bottles of saké and plastic cups, "we drink to the memory of our comrade, gentlemen. And ladies," he added at a glare from Misao-san.

Eiji didn't know if this was proper wake procedure, but judging from the frowns that Misao-san, Tokio-san and Shinomori-san were wearing, he was going to go with no.

"Okita-san," Tokio-san began, "I don't think—"

"It's okay," Saitou-san said suddenly. "We used to do this back then."

Tokio-san watched him, then seemed to understand what he was talking about, because she sighed and relented:

"Fine, but don't get loud, all right? It's very rude."

"Yes Mommy," Okita-san said cheekily, grinning widely as he dug out the cups and began passing them out.

They moved the chairs so they could sit more or less in a half circle in front of the casket, and Eiji got his first taste of saké that night when Saitou-san said a quiet toast in Brother's honor, having been Brother's superior officer and all. Okita-san insisted on giving him a cup and pouring about a gulp's worth of the clear liquid in it, saying Eiji at least needed to drink the first toast. Tokio-san didn't look happy with that, but since Saitou-san didn't say anything to contradict Okita-san, and this seemed to be a ritual of some kind for the officers, she kept quiet.

Eiji discovered that he was not a saké drinker. It tasted bitter and burned all the way down, making him sputter and cough, and Okita-san grinned and asked how he liked it.

"Nasty," Eiji managed to get out between coughs, and Okita-san chuckled, then provided him with a cup of water and said he could drink it the rest of the night and pretend it was saké.

The four men spent the rest of the night telling stories about Brother and laughing quietly. Eiji was surprised that so much had happened between Brother and the officers in such a very short time, and also surprised by the genuine respect and affection in the men's voices. Tokio-san and Misao-san didn't offer anything, simply sat back and laughed along with the officers, and Eiji leaned into Tokio-san's side and rested his head against her and listened to the conversation and the quiet laughter and fell asleep at some point, because a long time later Tokio-san shook him gently awake and he opened his eyes and found himself curled up under Saitou-san's suit jacket, his head pillowed on Tokio-san's lap.

"Wha?" he murmured groggily.

"Come on honey, wake up," she said. "We have to get ready for the funeral."

"'S mornin'?"

"Uh-huh."

So he sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked around. It was just him and Tokio-san sitting in the room. The seats had been set to rights again, there was no trace that a group of people had spent the night there drinking saké.

"Where'd everybody go?" Eiji mumbled, scratching his head and yawning.

"They're out hunting breakfast," Tokio-san replied, stooping over and picking up Saitou-san's jacket, which had slid to the floor with an audible PLOP when he'd sat up.

Saitou-san came back into the room with the Swede, who was talking to him. Saitou-san wasn't watching him but he was nodding in a way that Eiji suspected meant he was, in fact, paying attention, and the two men stopped in front of them. Tokio-san silently handed Saitou-san his jacket, and the tall man nodded and shook it out, then shrugged into it, and Eiji caught sight of a silver chain attached to his belt and disappearing into his pocket. He hadn't noticed it earlier when Saitou-san had been getting ready, and wondered what it was, but didn't really feel like asking—it felt like too much work right now.

The Swede assured them that he would make sure Brother was well looked after while they ate breakfast and woke up a little more, and the three of them left the funeral home and walked down the street to a little hole-in–the-wall restaurant, where Okita-san and the others had already taken over a couple of tables and pushed them together so the group could eat together.

Everyone looked a little mussed and wilted, but Okita-san and Misao-san were in fine form and bickered in a light-hearted manner that made things seem a little less gloomy. Eiji didn't really pay much attention until Okita-san and Misao-san ganged up on Himura-san, who then had to be "rescued" by Shinomori-san and a vaguely irritated Saitou-san. Tokio-san only coughed to hide her laughter and politely asked Eiji how his breakfast was.

Once they'd all eaten and perked up a little more, the women retired to the restroom, the men also making use of the facilities and then convening outside the restaurant to wait for the women. Saitou-san took the opportunity to light a cigarette with his lighter, which caught Eiji's attention. His temporary guardian noticed and silently held the lighter out to him so he could get a better look, and Eiji took it and looked it over, impressed with it.

"Make sure Okita-kun doesn't get a hold of it," Saitou-san said.

"You're a bastard, Hajime," Okita-san grumbled when Eiji quickly moved closer to Saitou-san and away from Okita-san, who had sidled over when Eiji had been occupied with the lighter.

"Watch your mouth in front of the kid," was Saitou-san's reply.

"Like he doesn't know even more than we do," Okita-san returned.

"That's not the point dumb ass," Saitou-san said around his cigarette. "Point is you aren't supposed to say shit like that in front of the kid."

"Dear Pot," Okita-san began, voice sarcastic, "it's your old friend Kettle here, wondering why you're such a holier-than-thou, hypocritical assho—"

"Wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you, sir," Shinomori-san said, and Okita-san sent him a puzzled look.

"I wish you hadn't said anything, Shinomori-san—I was so looking forward to the end of that sentence," Tokio-san's voice came from behind the group, deceptively light.

"Oh sh—" Okita-san began.

"Language," the group at large reminded him, and Eiji found his third smile of the day—the first and second had been, respectively, when Misao-san had stolen Himura-san's toast and Okita-san and Misao-san had taken turns taking the redhead's coffee cup while he sighed in weary resignation and asked them to please stop acting like they didn't have any damn sense (Tokio-san had raised her eyebrow upon hearing Himura-san say that, which Eiji took to mean the small man didn't curse the way Okita-san and Saitou-san appeared to—that is, often; in his defense, however, Okita-san and Misao-san had been messing with him for most of breakfast and making it hard for him to eat in peace).

That smile ended up being the last one of the day.

A couple of hours later, the funeral began. A wooden tablet now joined the incense urn on the table before the casket, and Tokio-san explained that it was Brother's kaimyo; apparently, they'd bought him one, and he vaguely thought that had been rather nice of them, for not having known Brother very well. The same priest was back to read a sutra again, and Eiji had to go up again and make his incense offering, though this time everyone else in the room went up too, so he didn't feel like he was being watched.

Once the priest had finished his chant, everyone bowed as he left. Saitou-san, acting as the representative, thanked the visitors on Eiji's behalf, mostly (Eiji leaned against Tokio-san and was glad he hadn't been made to do that), and then an emcee from the home read telegrams from people Eiji didn't recognize and couldn't have cared less about.

The final viewing came next, and Eiji sat with Tokio-san and watched visitors go up to Brother's casket, some of them slipping flowers inside, and once everyone who'd wanted to had approached the casket, it was sealed shut and then carried (by the officers) and loaded into a very nice hearse and taken to be cremated, and the group of them followed it to the crematorium in silence, in two cars Chief Hijikata had allowed them to use for that purpose. Eiji stayed with Okita-san and Shinomori-san and Misao-san and Himura-san while Saitou-san and Tokio-san went to oversee Brother's body being slid into the cremation chamber (which Eiji decided he wanted no part of, and so said nothing in protest of the decision) and found out how long it was going to take. When they came back Saitou-san absently ruffled Eiji's hair and told the group it'd be two hours, more or less. After some debate, they retired to Saitou-san's apartment (not that Saitou-san had offered it up or anything—that had been Tokio-san, and she had completely ignored his outraged expression; Eiji would have laughed if it weren't the day of Brother's funeral).

Upon reaching the apartment, Eiji closed himself up in the room that had been given to him and plopped face down on the fold out couch after he set it up, to listen to the adults' murmured conversation in the main room. He felt tired but couldn't seem to fall asleep, so he closed his eyes and waited for the time to go back to the crematorium to arrive.

It was Tokio-san who crept into the room to gently "wake" him up, and he let her believe he'd been asleep. It was a somber drive back to the crematorium, and this time only he, Tokio-san and Saitou-san went in. Eiji had some idea of what came next, vaguely remembering Brother explaining it to him (Brother had said he was too young to take part in this part of the funeral for their parents), but not the specifics, so it was with a muted sense of relief that he listened to Tokio-san instruct him on what he was supposed to do now. She helped him pick Brother's bones out of the ashes with chopsticks, starting from his feet and going upwards, and placing them in the urn. Once all the bones were in the urn, Brother's ashes joined them and then Tokio-san covered and wrapped the urn in a white cloth. She then handed the urn to him, and he held onto it so tightly he wondered a couple of times if it was too hard, if he'd break it and then Brother's ashes and bones would be scattered all to hell.

They left the crematorium, Okita-san driving them to the apartment and dropping them off in front of the building. Eiji said his good-bye reflexively to Okita-san as he had to Shinomori-san and Misao-san and Himura-san at the crematorium (Himura-san was going to drive the other two home, news which made Shinomori-san sigh wearily and Misao-san mutter that Himura-san drove slower than most little old ladies walked), and was dead silent on the elevator ride up to the eighth floor. When they reached the apartment, he took off his shoes and set them in the shoe rack and began for his room, Brother's urn still in his hands.

"Eiji-kun?" Tokio-san called, and he stopped and looked over his shoulder and found her and Saitou-san watching him. "Eiji-kun, we…uhm…before we left? We set up a small butsudan, so you could set your brother's urn down there until…the ashes…could be buried."

Eiji watched them, brow slowly furrowing, then turned around to face them.

"Butsudan?" he repeated, his mind not quite able to wrap itself around what Tokio-san was saying.

"Well yes," Tokio-san said, fidgeting; Saitou-san nudged her and she stopped. For a second. "It's over here, on the other side of the table? We moved it—the table, I mean—back so there was enough room for it…I don't guess you noticed that the table wasn't where it usually is?"

Actually, he had, in an absent sort of way. Eventually, he probably would have mentioned it, if she hadn't said anything. But right now, his mind was too focused on Brother to really notice anything else.

He walked around and then stopped when he saw it. It was the same butsudan he and Brother had had in their apartment—Okita-san or one of the others must have brought it—and the picture of his parents had been joined by one of Brother in his uniform. He stared at it for a long time, then raggedly said,

"Oh. A butsudan."

He walked over and set Brother's ashes down, next to his picture, then plopped down on his knees in front of it. In a detached sort of way, he noticed that everything was in order—the small cup of water and bowl of rice and the incense and Mom and Dad's mortuary tablets and a new one, a wooden one, for Brother. He remembered Brother's badge and pulled it out of his pocket and set it down next to the urn and then just sat in front of the butsudan and looked at it until his vision got all blurry.

And then Tokio-san was kneeling next to him and hugging him and Eiji realized he was crying again, and knew a moment of utter horror and shame that he was crying in front of her and probably Saitou-san too.

But he was also a ten-year-old orphan who'd just lost his only other family in the world, and looking at it like that, Eiji guessed there were worse things to do than act like a scared, heartbroken little kid for one afternoon.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Oh, how he _longed_ for normalcy.

Saitou wasn't really given to dramatics the way Okita was, or exaggeration…also the way Okita was…but he was beginning to rather seriously think that there was a plot against him afoot.

It had been six days since he'd offered Mishima Eiji a temporary place in his home, and it was starting to look like "temporary" had been a misnomer.

They couldn't seem to find any relatives. _Any_. Like the Mishimas had just popped into being and then popped right back out, no one before them and one left behind. And Saitou was sure this was evidence of a plot (perhaps masterminded by the gods—they seemed to enjoy this kind of thing quite a bit) to both make him regret he'd ever been brought into this world, and also to drive him insane.

To add to that, Senkaku's legal representation ended up being none other than Matsumoto, and the jackass had dropped several hints that Saitou and Kenshin could expect some repercussions for their rough handling of his client. To which Saitou had replied that Matsumoto could kiss his lily white ass, and if he tried to pin anything on Saitou, he shouldn't be too surprised if he should one day find himself rather inconveniently stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Don't threaten me you cretin," Matsumoto snapped, outraged.

"I don't threaten, asshole, I promise," Saitou snapped back.

"I could file charges against you!"

"Not if I break your fucking neck you couldn't!"

"Whoa whoa!" Okita yelled. "All right, break it up! You aren't breakin' his neck, Haji—not unless you let the rest of us in on the fun," he added, sending Matsumoto a black look. "And _you_ ain't filin' shit against him, _and_ you ain't gonna do a damn thing to him or Himura or _I'll_ make sure you have an _unfortunate_ _accident_."

"Do you barbarians actually think you can just threaten me and get away with it?" Matsumoto demanded, raising his voice.

"We _know_ we can," Okita snapped back, silencing him. "I _dare_ you to find a man in the whole precinct who'll say a word against any of us! Shit, I dare you to find one in the _whole of the MPD_!"

That had promptly shut Matsumoto up, and he'd left, jaw tight and furious. There was no arguing with the solidarity of the MPD as a unit—for better or worse, the police protected their own. Not that that meant things were completely corrupt—there was only so much the Superintendent General could ignore, after all, and because Kondou was who he was, and because of the background he had, sleaze wasn't really tolerated within the MPD. But if you accused an officer of anything, you had damn well better have irrefutable proof, and you had damn well better watch your back for a good long while too.

Since then, they'd seen neither hide nor hair of Matsumoto, and the lawyer hadn't sent along any documents alerting either Saitou or Kenshin of legal action being taken against them. But Matsumoto hadn't exactly been quiet, either, and he threw lots of tedious and unnecessary paperwork at them (it was only _technically_ necessary, but hardly crucial) in a gesture of childish pique.

So Saitou and the others had been setting the papers on fire with his lighter in the yard and watching them burn, also in a gesture of childish pique.

Still, despite the fact that he was pretty much taking care of that situation, it was annoying that he had to bother. Matsumoto was just being a dick because he knew the chances of his finally getting to nail Saitou's ass to the cross as he'd so long dreamed of doing were less than a million to one. The only thing that kept Saitou from bouncing the asshole's head off his fist was that a charge of assault and battery from Matsumoto against him wouldn't go away the way a charge of assault and battery from someone like Senkaku or Nakajima would.

Matsumoto might have defended low lifes but his word was still worth its weight in gold.

So between the Incredible Disappearing Mishimas and Senkaku and Matsumoto, Dumb Asses Extraordinaire, Saitou's workdays were just one big, long headache. Oh—and Tokio was in on it, too.

Well, perhaps that wasn't fair. He was pretty sure that if she'd had the option, staying at the museum until ten o'clock at night wouldn't have been how she'd chosen to spend her days of late. Unfortunately, she didn't appear to have a choice in the matter. They were finally getting the money they'd been promised from the one historical society that had approved them, and work was underway in earnest to get the exhibit back up. Anji and his crew were putting in overtime, and Tokio was staying behind to personally make sure every man received his due, and also to take care of problems as they arose. Most nights, Enishi or Kamatari or both stayed behind with her, and they walked (or in Enishi's case, drove) her home too, which mollified Saitou a little. He didn't live in an unsafe neighborhood, but a woman walking home alone at ten o'clock was too good a target to pass up, and Saitou preferred not to invite trouble.

Plus, as interesting as the reactions would have been, he didn't want to have to explain to his brothers on the force how his girlfriend had reduced a would-be purse-snatcher to a whimpering little girl.

Missing her company and cooking aside, the reason her late nights really bothered him so much was that it made it necessary for him to spend extended time around the kid, just the two of them, and Saitou had no idea how to relate to the boy. Tokio had quickly established a rapport with him, as evidenced by the way he'd been glued to her during his brother's wake and the way he'd bawled on her and gotten snot all over the shoulder of her dress the day of the funeral, but he regarded Saitou with caution, and Saitou regarded him with equal caution and bafflement.

Saitou had never truly acted like a child when he'd been a child. He'd been serious, inclined to act far older than he actually was, pretty much from the day he said his first word—"Masu," his mother's name.

The weirdness incarnate that was his father didn't help.

Saitou Yuusuke was as goofy as his youngest son was sober, and as far as Saitou could tell his father had never been any other way. His mother insisted that his father could be serious when the situation warranted it, but privately, Saitou doubted it and thought his father must have lied about that to his wife when they'd gotten married.

So really, using his father as a model was no help.

Assuming he wanted to be normal, of course.

Denpachi wasn't as inaccessibly weird as Yuusuke, but where Yuusuke had been, well, more child than adult, Denpachi had more than made up for that—the old man had always been quite strict with Saitou and his brother and sister. Saitou had never really minded, and Denpachi had nothing on Kojuro in that department, but Denpachi had always used a heavy hand with the boys in particular, barking that they were men and should act like it at all times.

Still, of the two, Denpachi's approach at least bordered on normalcy, so he adopted it when dealing with Eiji. And so far it had worked pretty well.

Denpachi had never been cruel; when a situation warranted it, he could be gruffly kind with his grandsons and granddaughter. There had been the one summer they'd been visiting him, back when he'd still lived on his little plot of land outside of Tokyo, growing cabbage, and the children's favorite of the three cats he kept had died of old age. Their grandfather had given the cat—whom the children had named "Stinky" for his particularly pungent odor—a proper burial at their request and not reprimanded Saitou or his brother with his usual bite about acting like men when they cried (in their defense, the boys had been six and seven, respectively). He'd grumbled about it, but he'd let them be for the most part.

And that was pretty much how Saitou had dealt with Eiji during the boy's brother's wake and funeral. He'd left the details to Tokio, since the boy appeared comfortable enough with her, and had only occasionally offered an Ichinohe Denpachi-school-of-child-care gesture of understanding and comfort.

But a "gruffly kind" ruffle of the hair only went so far; eventually, more communication—_verbal_ communication—became necessary, and it was here that Saitou encountered difficulty.

Tokio often accused him of being antisocial, and he never bothered to say anything because he was and accepted that and didn't care. Small talk irritated him, because he really, honestly didn't see the point in it—so the weather was tolerable, or maybe it wasn't. So frickin' what, who gave a shit? So the politicians were dirty. And? That crap never changed. Small talk seemed like an excuse to bitch about things you had no control over, and Saitou preferred to use his time more efficiently, so he'd never bothered to learn how to bullshit with people he didn't like—he made exceptions for Okita and Senpai and Harada and Heisuke and that was it.

…well, maybe with Tokio too. And his brother and grandfather. But that was it.

But now he sort of wished he knew how to do that crap, because having the kid be so quiet creeped him out a little. He'd always been of the opinion that children—especially other people's children—ought to be seen and not heard (he'd have preferred neither seeing nor hearing them; unfortunately, you couldn't have everything you wanted in life), but he'd never thought it would weird him out so much when it finally happened.

Mostly, he thought it might have something to do with the fact that the kid looked…well, sad. He himself had been a sober child, but he'd never been a sad one, and it bothered him to see the boy looking like that—just didn't seem natural, damn it, you know? Yeah, sure, his brother had died and he had no family left…but geez, the mopey face was driving Saitou crazy.

Tokio was good at making it go away, and he always felt awkward when she wasn't around and it was just him and the kid, because he would have liked to have the kid cheer up but he had no idea how to go about it.

Denpachi was no help here, because Saitou and his grandfather had long ago established a nonverbal rapport that made actually speaking redundant. So not only did he not know how to make bullshit talk to pass the time, he didn't know how to initiate a conversation, because he didn't converse so much as order people around or give them hell when they didn't do what he'd ordered, sometimes doing both simultaneously depending on how many morons he had around him at any given moment. Curt directives, dry observations and stinging zingers were way different from a real conversation, and he got practice with Tokio, who was a lot chattier than he was, but she was (despite abundant evidence suggesting the contrary) an adult, and conversations with an adult were different from the kinds of conversations you had with a kid. And Saitou was stuck even worse because he'd never had a real, honest-to-god kid conversation in his life.

So in the end he just decided to talk to the kid the way he talked to Okita and the others. He really had no other way of going about it. And since he had no idea what it was one talked about with ten-year-olds, he usually asked him about school. Or rather, his schoolwork, since he hadn't gone back yet.

As it turned out, the boy had horrible trouble with his arithmetic. Not that Saitou blamed him, exactly, because he'd taken one look at the kid's math workbook the first night, then set it aside and pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes until his head stopped hurting.

"What the _hell_ was what?" he asked finally, looking over at the kid, incredulous and appalled—_what_ were they teaching children these days?

And _why_ did he suddenly sound like his grandfather?

"Math," the kid replied.

"No, really," Saitou said, dead serious.

"Math, sir," the kid said again.

Saitou's gaze returned to the deceptively innocent workbook lying face down on the table.

"Now that's just mean," he said finally.

It took him a while, but he figured out what was what eventually, and they sat at the table while he explained it to the kid and showed him how to do his drills.

"Yamada-sensei didn't teach us like that," Eiji said after Saitou did one of the odd numbered problems as an example.

"Is the answer right or is it wrong?" Saitou testily demanded, and Eiji flipped to the back of the book and found the answer in the provided "selected answers" key.

"'S right," he said, looking up at Saitou.

"Then shut up and do 'em the way I taught you," he said.

Eiji sent him a vaguely annoyed look but did as he was told, and then Saitou checked the work over and made him do the ones he'd gotten wrong over again.

That was also the evening he'd found out the boy had been placed in an advanced class.

"How'd you get put there if you can't do the work?" he asked, wondering if it was possible for people to _actually_ _be_ _that dumb_.

Then he remembered the Hiruma brothers.

Oh. Right.

Eiji shrugged.

"The work was easier for me in the other class, so they jumped me up to this one." he said.

Saitou grunted, frowning at the book.

The boy also had less than par marks in his language class.

"You Tokyo people don't talk right," was his reply when Saitou inquired as to the reason behind that.

"Yeah? Well tough shit for you—that's the way you have to talk if you expect to get halfway decent marks," Saitou replied, not looking up from the page he was reading over in the workbook—things had changed a little since he'd taken Japanese language in elementary school. Not to the brain-exploding degree that it appeared elementary mathematics had changed, but it wasn't the same either.

Eiji sent him a scowl and crossed his arms over his chest.

"They make fun of the way I say stuff," he muttered. "They say it's weird."

"Well of course your pronunciation's weird, you grew up speaking in a dialect," Saitou said. "Big deal. One of the retards that works under me talks like he comes from medieval Japan."

"Himura-san?" Eiji tried after a thoughtful pause.

"The one and only," Saitou muttered, flipping through the workbook. "Be grateful you don't talk like him—you'd get your ass kicked every day."

And so that was how they'd spent most of their evenings without Tokio. Usually, they were still at the table when she got back, because Eiji could be stubborn sometimes (particularly with his language work, which he still insisted was stupid and wrong), though he was beginning to realize that Saitou would only take so much crap before he exchanged his patience for something less understanding.

But tonight, Saitou really wasn't in the mood to deal with the kid's obstinacy, not after the news he'd been handed today by Hijikata.

It had just been him and Okita in the office, and as usual, Okita was being a trial on Saitou's nerves. Hijikata's walking into their office had silently made Saitou thank the gods.

And then Hijikata had spoken.

"Well, that's it," he said, sitting down wearily in Mishima's empty chair.

"What is?" Okita asked.

"No one is willing to take in Mishima's brother," Hijikata said.

"You're yankin' me, right?" Saitou immediately asked. "Right?"

"No," Hijikata replied, and Saitou and Okita sat in stunned silence.

"But I thought he had a cousin or something in Osaka—" Okita began, incredulous.

"Yamamoto Shuuhei-san is under no obligation to take Mishima-kun in," Hijikata interrupted. "He maintains he has enough problems to deal with without adding an at best distant relation to them."

"What a prick," was Okita's disgusted assessment. "Geez, even if it's distant, it's still your family, your _blood_, you don't just cut family loose like that…especially not a kid."

There was a long period of silence as the three men contemplated this development, and then Hijikata sighed and ran a hand through his hair and asked,

"Well Hajime-kun?"

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?" he prompted when Hijikata didn't say anything else.

"What're you going to do with him?" Hijikata qualified.

Saitou flinched, surprised.

"_Me_? What the hell're you askin' me for?"

"He's still in your custody," Okita pointed out. "Technically, for right now, you're his guardian."

"Well yeah, but—"

"I suppose we'll have to hand him over to the state then," Hijikata said, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly.

"Aw come on sir!" Okita immediately said, not appearing to like that very much at all, and Saitou had to admit he wasn't keen on it either. "That's not fair! We can't do that to him!"

"Well we're out of options," Hijikata argued. "If there were any other family members I could contact, I would, but Yamamoto-san was the only one I could find." He sighed. "Look, Souji-kun, I don't like it any more than you do, but what am I supposed to do? Ask Hajime-kun to keep the boy indefinitely?"

"Well I haven't heard him complainin' about havin' the kid there," Okita shot back.

"Okita Souji," Hijikata intoned, voice holding warning.

"It's true! I mean, what the hell, he's got no folks, no brother, and we're just gonna cut 'im loose like that?! 'Sorry kid, we know your brother just died, and the only other family you have in the world doesn't want you, but we don't either, so have a nice life and we hope things turn out okay'? That's fucked up!"

Not to mention, Saitou thought with a wince, exactly what Tokio would say when he told her about this.

She'd been growing increasingly more concerned about Eiji's fate as the days had passed, and on numerous occasions she'd expressed pretty much the same sentiments Okita was expressing about the boy's ending up as a ward of the state should no family be located and willing to take him in. He mostly hadn't said much on the subject, because it was out of his hands and talking about it wasn't going to change the outcome. But Tokio had been rather adamant about helping Eiji in any way possible—apparently she'd become very fond of the boy in the short period of time he'd been with them.

"Oi," he said finally, interrupting the two men in the room with him mid-shout. "Just…hold off on that for a day or two, okay Chief?"

Hijikata blinked, then eyed him, surprised.

"Why?" he asked.

"I…might know…_someone_…who could take him," Saitou hesitantly admitted, and sighed when Okita grinned, instantly understanding what he was saying.

Hijikata looked even more surprised by this announcement.

"Are you serious?"

Saitou knew his miserable discomfort with the situation was on his face.

"Yeah."

"How sure are you they could take him in?"

Okita's grin widened, and Saitou's shoulders drooped a little—damn it.

"…Pretty sure, sir."

Hijikata looked suddenly lighter.

"Excellent," he said, rising with a suddenly thrilled expression on his face. "Just excellent—you let me know when you know for sure, all right?"

"Yes sir."

Hijikata left the office and Okita and Saitou eyed each other in silence, Okita grinning widely at his friend and Saitou wondering if it would be in bad taste to kick Okita's teeth down his throat.

"I had no idea you were such a sof—" Okita gleefully began.

"Gatotsu to the head," Saitou intoned, glaring, "if you say another word. Understood?"

Okita nodded cheerfully, and they went back to the paperwork they had been working on (ignoring entirely, in Okita's case) before Hijikata's arrival. They worked in utter silence for a while, and then Okita asked, voice serious,

"What's Tokio-san gonna say?"

"I thought I told you to shut up," Saitou replied, not looking up; it was futile and he knew it, but he never stopped hoping that one day, not giving Okita his full attention might actually work.

"Like I listen to you," Okita muttered, and Saitou's left eyelid twitched (_Should have seen that one coming_, he sourly admitted). "Come on, seriously—what's she gonna say when you tell her?"

"That I've found a place for the kid?" Saitou asked, deciding to play dumb and hope it worked.

"Yeah, with you two," Okita replied with a knowing smirk.

…Little shit, destroying his hopes and dreams like that.

"I don't know," he snapped.

Okita's smirk disappeared.

"Dude…did you screw up?" he asked, serious. "I mean, a kid's a big thing, and you guys're…well, so far you ain't said nothin' about it bein' serious—"

"You seem a hell of a lot more concerned about it than I am," Saitou dryly pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

"You're socially and emotionally retarded," Okita immediately replied, "someone has to worry about the shit you don't notice since you're incapable of it."

Saitou sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

"I fucking hate you," he muttered, digging out his cigarettes and lighter.

Okita was kind enough to let him light one and take a nice, deep drag before asking,

"Well Haji?"

"Would you shut up if I asked you nicely?" Saitou tried, and Okita stared at him, then threw back his head and laughed like a lunatic for five minutes before he noticed Saitou was watching him, looking quite sober…and also, you know, really pissed off.

"Oh—you were serious," Okita said, his surprise written on his face.

A deepening of the glare his friend and superior was sending him was his only answer.

Which was enough of an answer, really.

"Look, all joking aside," Okita said, "I'm just askin'. Wouldn't want you to take on a kid—which is completely friggin' weird, by the way—without bein' sure, right?"

"I'm not an idiot, Souji, I'm aware of what a kid entails," Saitou snapped, slumping down in his seat to glare at his desktop moodily.

"I'm just sayin'," Okita said, holding his hands up in a placating fashion. His hands dropped down, and he sat back and sighed. "I'm glad though, that the kid ain't goin' to a orphanage or somethin'. I'd feel bad about it. Don't think I'd ever be able to face Mishima-kun in the afterlife if we did his little brother wrong like that."

"Foster care isn't so bad," Saitou said, but it was weak and both of them knew it.

"His odds're better with you, scary as that is to admit," Okita said. "We don't know what whack job'd get him if we gave him up to the state. 'Sides, he seemed like he was okay with you guys at Mishima-kun's wake and funeral."

Saitou didn't reply, because he'd decided to ignore the dig at his parenting capabilities and because he didn't really have one for the rest. He'd taken the boy in out of a sense of guilt, maybe misplaced, over what had happened to his elder brother. And now that the boy really did have no one to turn to, he knew there wasn't a chance he could toss the kid out and wish him luck.

As heartless as he was reputed to be, that was a level of cruel that appalled even him.

Plus the kid wasn't so bad…when he wasn't being a pain in the ass about his language drills, that is.

"So you're keepin' the kid?" Okita asked after a moment.

Saitou sighed again and dropped his head back to look up at the ceiling, frowning around his cigarette.

"Yeah," he said, then sat up and leaned forward to knock ash off the tip of his cigarette and into his ash tray, "I'm keepin' the kid."

Okita smirked.

"Congratulations," Okita said dryly, "it's a boy."

"Gatotsu to the head, fucktard." Saitou snapped back, and Okita laughed and then shot out of his chair and ran out of the room (still laughing), since Saitou had stood up and snatched his nightstick up off his desk.

When Saitou had gotten home, he'd found Eiji waiting for him on the steps out front, talking to Nanao's grandson Soujiro.

"Hello Saitou-san," Soujiro cheerfully greeted.

"Yo," Saitou said, then looked at Eiji. "When'd you get here?"

"Like maybe…I guess, fifteen minutes?" Eiji replied, and Saitou nodded.

"You come walkin' by yourself?"

"Naw—Kamatari-san came with me."

Thank God Tokio hadn't given the kid her keys, Saitou thought—he'd have killed her for giving that fruitcake access to his home.

The three of them rode the elevator up, and parted on the eighth floor, the boys bidding each other good-bye, with Soujiro telling Eiji he should come up to his and his grandmother's apartment sometime.

"Do that next time he offers," Saitou said to Eiji as they were walking to his door. "Better than waiting outside those days Tokio doesn't give you her keys. Plus it's warmer."

"She forgot today," Eiji replied, already tugging his scarf from around his neck. He eyed Saitou speculatively. "For real? I could go to Soujiro-kun's?"

"I said you could, didn't I?" he replied with a touch of annoyance.

Eiji snorted as they got into the apartment.

"_Touchy_," he muttered, and Saitou sent him a narrow look.

At first, he'd left the kid to his own devices up until dinner. Lately, though, Eiji had been sitting at the table to watch Saitou put something together, looking amused and annoying the hell out of the older man, so Saitou had retaliated by making him set the table, the way his mother used to make him and his brother and sister do when the family came over for New Year's, and he was just as nitpicky as she'd been too, just because he could be. At eleven, he'd always grumbled under his breath about how knowing how to set a "proper table" was totally useless (and gotten whacked over the head for it when his mother heard him, which was always), but at thirty-one and feeling a little malicious, he decided it had its uses.

After dinner the kid dried while he washed the dishes, and then it was time for him to take a shower before they settled down to do his homework, which always began with a checking over of his classwork and always ended with a fight over his language homework. Tonight ran just like clockwork, and when Tokio got home at ten twenty-eight, she found Saitou and Eiji nose to nose and in a heated debate over the correct pronunciation of his drills.

"What in the world is going on here?" Tokio asked, standing in the entry and blinking owlishly.

"He can't talk right!" Eiji immediately accused, pointing at Saitou.

"He's ignorant!" Saitou shot back.

"I am not!"

"Well if you weren't you'd have said it right already and we'd have moved on!"

"I have too been sayin' it right!"

"You have not, you little—"

"Oi, oi, everyone calm down," Tokio ordered, raising her voice slightly. "Lemme at least get inside, okay?"

So they waited while she got out of her shoes and coat and set each in its respective place alongside their shoes and coats, and hung her keys next to Saitou's, keeping their peace while she set her purse and brief case down on the floor, out of the way of traffic, and then padded over to the table to ruffle Eiji's hair and kiss Saitou. Then she asked,

"Now what word is giving the two of you apoplectics?"

They still got into a fight, even with Tokio mediating, and after two minutes Tokio announced that it was way past time for Eiji to be in bed and he should get there now.

"He didn't finish," Saitou said.

"He can finish tomorrow," Tokio replied, picking up the books and stacking them neatly on the table top for Eiji to take. "What's for dinner?"

"You don't honestly have to ask at this point, right?" Saitou asked, and Tokio laughed and waved good-night to Eiji, who waved back and then slid the door of his borrowed room shut, his books tucked under one arm.

"All this instant soba can't be good for us," she said, stretching.

"I can't make anything else, woman." Pause. "Unless it's instant, anyway."

Tokio shook her head, still grinning, and gestured him over.

"I'll teach you how to cook some time," she offered, lifting her arms up in a gesture that usually said, "I want a hug," but these days meant "Please crack my back."

So he obliged her and still thought it was weird that she didn't mind the loud, uneven chorus of cracking bones the way every other woman he'd ever been with had.

Then again, she'd probably broken more (of other people's) bones than all of them put together, and the sound of bones breaking was a lot grosser than the sound of them cracking.

Her back now taken care of, she bounded into the kitchen to get her dinner and he sat at the table and waited for her to come back. Usually, she didn't care for cold food, but lately she came home so hungry that she didn't mind—so long as it was food, she was happy. Still, though:

"Cold instant soba is disgusting, Tokio," he said.

"Yum," she said mischievously, slurping up a cold noodle for emphasis and laughing when he grimaced. "You're such a princess about your food," she teased, going back to the table and plopping down next to him.

"You gonna be staying late tomorrow night?" he asked.

"Probably," she replied. Seeing his frown, she asked, "Why? Something wrong?"

"I'm on tomorrow night," he said.

Tokio frowned too.

"Hm." She looked down at her cold dinner thoughtfully. "Well, I guess maybe I could see…I don't like to not be there in case they need something, but…." She shrugged. "Whatever, I'll think about it tomorrow. I'm too tired to think about it right now."

Uh-oh. That didn't sound promising.

He coughed.

"How tired are you?" he asked.

She paused and sent him a searching look, then set her chopsticks down.

"What happened?" she asked.

He rubbed the underside of his jaw with the back of his hand.

"Well, Hijikata told me today that he was able to locate a member of the kid's family," he said. "Yamamoto Shuuhei of Osaka."

"Well…that's good, right?" she asked, frowning.

"Well it was—'til Hijikata said the guy didn't want the kid. Apparently he's got other priorities right now."

She sent him a stunned look.

"But, did Hijikata-san tell him that Eiji-kun has no other family? That his brother died?" she demanded after a moment.

Saitou nodded.

"That jerk!" Tokio burst out, irate. "What a—a—gah, I'm too mad to think! I can't believe him!" She sobered as a thought occurred. "Hajime? What happens to Eiji-kun now?"

"Well, we can turn him over to the state—"

"We most certainly _cannot_," she muttered, sending him a dark look. "Try again."

He sent her an exasperated glare, then continued,

"Or we can find him a place to stay ourselves."

She considered that one, then sighed.

"Well…didja have someone in mind?"

"Yeah."

"And?" she prompted when he didn't continue.

"And what?" he replied, and got a nasty look in return.

"Dumb doesn't suit you," she informed him. "Now answer the question and stop acting like you have no idea what I'm talking about."

He was pretty sure of the reaction he was going to get, but then again, he couldn't always predict which way Tokio was going to go. Mostly, he just had to go by what he knew and hope for the best.

"…I was thinkin' he could stay here," he said finally with affected nonchalance. "So far he hasn't been so bad…well, he's a pain in the ass for his language drills, but other than that he's all right. And, you know, he's not a baby or nothin', he can do for himself with most…stuff. And he's got enough of his own stuff already that I figure he won't bankrupt us." He eyed her as she sat quiet and simply watched him. "Well?"

"Well?" she prompted.

"Dumb doesn't suit you," he shot back sardonically.

"_I_ make it endearing and cute," she immediately replied. "Of course I'm not going to say no, stupid."

"Oi, watch it," he warned, but he didn't really mean it.

Well, not much, anyway.

"Now all we have left to do is ask Eiji-kun about it tomorrow," she said.

"Bullshit, he's awake—he's sittin' by the door, thinkin' I can't hear him," Saitou said, raising his voice a little and eyeing the living room door.

Sure enough, it slid open and Eiji peeked out at them sheepishly.

"Get over here," Saitou ordered, and Eiji immediately did as he was told, asking,

"I'm in trouble, huh?"

"We'll talk about the blatant eavesdropping later," Saitou said.

"Right now, we're interested in what you have to say about all this, since you heard it all already," Tokio agreed, smiling at him.

The kid watched them in silence for a long time, looking unsure and hesitant.

"…Okay," he mumbled finally, and Saitou reached over and flicked his forehead, saying,

"Oi, speak up, talk like a man."

despite the fact that he'd heard the boy's answer just fine.

"Ow!" Eiji yelped, slapping a hand onto his forehead. "That hurt!"

"Oh it did not," Saitou scoffed, then let out a startled yelp when Tokio whacked him. "What the hell?!"

"Don't hit him!"

"I didn't hit him!"

"I just saw you!"

"I flicked him, damn it!"

"Well don't flick him!"

"That didn't even hurt! Believe me, woman, he'd _know_ if I hit him."

"He would not, because you aren't hitting him!"

"Oi," Eiji said suddenly, raising his voice a little, and they looked over at him.

"Well?" Saitou demanded when he didn't continue, and Tokio sent him a warning look that he ignored. "What's your answer then? 'Cause I couldn't hear you before."

"Could too," Eiji muttered, and Saitou narrowed his eyes. "I said okay," Eiji quickly said, speaking loud and clear. "You guys're…you're okay."

"I can live with that," Saitou decided, and Tokio rolled her eyes, then sent Eiji a grin.

"Excellent," she declared, rising. "Now come help me move the TV," she told Saitou.

"_What_?" he asked, baffled by the order. "_Why_?"

"Because, that's going to be Eiji-kun's room now and he needs room for a bureau—we'll go get that Saturday, okay?" Tokio said to Eiji, who looked surprised.

"I—y-yeah," he stuttered. "Okay, Tokio-san."

"You know, maybe we should buy you your own bedroom set while we're at it," she said thoughtfully.

"With what money?" Saitou asked, raising an eyebrow—Tokio, not to his surprise, ignored him.

"You don't hafta do that Tokio-san," Eiji hurriedly said, but Tokio (again, not to Saitou's surprise), ignored him too and went on into the former living room to start unplugging things.

Saitou got up to stop her before she unplugged things that shouldn't be unplugged (because he didn't feel like playing "Which-plug-goes-where" later), and noticed the sort of stupefied look on the kid's face at being ignored for the first time by the woman who thus far had been nothing short of self-sacrificing.

"She didn't hear me, huh?" he said finally.

"Nope," Saitou agreed, hands in his pockets. He rocked back on his heels. "Remember that feeling, kid—it ain't gonna be the last time you feel it, trust me."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 34: And Then There Were Four:_

"Shut up and eat your breakfast," Saitou ordered.

"There's no food at the table yet," the boy pointed out.

"Then just shut up." was the reply.

"Jerk," Eiji muttered, flopping down into his usual seat.

---

Eiji gave up and sat back and decided Hajime-oji was a retard and no help—if he was going to help Tokio-oba be happy again, he'd just have to do it himself.

---

"Are you fucking _insane_?!" Matsumoto bellowed. "Those are _official court documents_!!"

"Yeah I know—they burn great, by the way," Hajime-oji replied.

---

"Talk right, boy," Saitou ordered, looking the box over, and Eiji sent him an annoyed look.

"How come I hafta talk right and you don't?"

"'Cause I said so," was the reply, and Eiji rolled his eyes and muttered something low enough under his breath that Saitou couldn't make it out.

* * *

**Additional A/N:** So, **koishiikochou** made a suggestion that I decided was a pretty good idea. Only I'm kinda sorta changing it. Tweaking it, if you will. I'll be posting updates on my progress up on my LJ account, so you'll know what's goin' on when I don't post for a long while (sometimes FF(dot)Net hates me and refuses to cooperate, or else I'd just post on my bio page). You can usually be assured that if I haven't posted by Tuesday night, I won't be posting until Sunday rolls around again (it's one of my many odd little idiosyncrasies). But if this is far too vague for you, head to my bio page and click on the "homepage" link, and you will immediately be informed and hopefully satisfied. So…wanna know if I'm posting next Sunday? Go to the link, kiddies. : ). 


	34. And Then There Were Four

**This chapter of _Captain Mis_ is brought to you today by the letter 'M'…as in 'Migraine.' **

A massive, my-eyes-are-going-to-explode-out-of-my-skull migraine kept me from posting this chapter on Sunday night like I was going to, because staring at a computer screen was a real bad idea right just then. And to make things that much worse, I _had_ to go to College on Monday, because I had to get my research paper back early in the morning, and I had a quiz in my math class at the end of the day, so I couldn't leave early (Fate loves to screw with me). I've decided being around people when I have a migraine is a bad idea, because I get more irritable than I usually am and have to literally clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from saying things I'd desperately regret having said later when I'm not as irritable anymore (you know, like snapping at my Research & Writing prof to cut the shit and get on with class al-fucking-ready…just as an example…).

Anyway. Some housekeeping to get out of the way before we begin:

**First:** Some of you have noticed, but I decided to announce it here for those of you who hadn't yet, and might be interested: away back in December, I started a little drabble collection called _All The Small Things_ set in the _Captain Mis_ universe (I kept forgetting to mention it here because I'm a spaz like that). Right now, it's pre-_CM_, but eventually, I'd like for it to catch up to the story here. Here's hoping, anyway.

**Second:** On March 6, 2007, _CM_ made it to 19,000 hits! (_throws confetti_) I haven't been paying really close attention to my numbers lately, since I've been busy, but when I happened to check that day I was really blown away. So thanks you guys! It made me really happy amidst all the craziness!

And so on that jubilant note, I give you your long-awaited Chapter 34. Enjoy. : ).

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

oba/oji: aunt and uncle, respectively; they're usually accompanied by one of the honorifics (i.e., -san)

obaa-chan: equivalent to saying "Grandma." This is more informal than saying "obaa-san"

More Of A Note Than Anything:

oba/oji/obaa-chan: since they're being used as part of people's names (like -chan/-san/-kun), I decided not to use the English equivalent. If they were being used by themselves, i.e., "Oji" instead of So-and-so-oji, I would have used "Uncle" instead. …That explanation made sense it my head, anyway.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

**_Chapter Thirty-Four: And Then There Were Four_**

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Three weeks.

Tokio had waited three full, complete weeks to call her father and make amends for the way she'd left his house and care, because she knew he was much angrier than he'd ever been with her, and also because she was a chicken shit who hadn't been able to get up the courage to do it until now.

Yeah, she admitted it—she loved her father, but he was scary in a way that Saitou would never be in a million years.

So she sat in her office, eyeing the telephone as if it were a pit viper. She knew the odds that her father was off today were excellent, since she'd long ago figured out a certain pattern to his schedules. Her little brother hadn't been working long enough for her to figure out his schedule patterns, and she was still in the process of figuring out Saitou's, but her father's had been engraved in her memory for some time now.

She had been practicing what she was going to say for a week now, but the idea of actually saying the carefully thought out speech to her father was, well, scary. This wasn't like the argument they'd gotten into when Sada had left home and Kojuro had forbidden the family from having contact with her. That time, three days after Morinusuke's birthday, had been the first time Tokio had ever challenged her father's word, but she'd done it without yelling. She'd been horrified by the idea that she'd never be able to talk to or see her sister—her unfailing confidant and most loyal friend—ever again, and told her father that wasn't fair, and what about Sada, what was she going to do without them to help her?

"Your sister has made her decision," Kojuro had said, visage stony.

"But Papa, you said she couldn't leave until she turned twenty!" Tokio protested. "You said she could do whatever she wanted when she—"

"Your sister, it would appear, decided two years was too long to wait," Kojuro interrupted. "If she had waited and kept to our agreement, I wouldn't…mind. But she didn't."

"So we can't talk to her anymore?" Tokio demanded.

Her father had watched her for a long time in silence, and that was the first time Tokio had ever remembered seeing him really look sad: not even the death of his father, whom he'd idolized, had brought such an achingly sad look to his weathered features. Later, after talking to Sada, she'd realized her father hadn't wanted to see his daughter go; he'd spent hours trying to change Sada's mind—about leaving home, not about being a musician, which was important. Kojuro had been trying to change Sada's mind about that since she'd entered high school, when she'd first announced her intentions to the family (Tokio, however, had known about it for a year and a half before everyone else found out).

Later, once Kojuro had relented and allowed Tokio to contact her sister if she so desired, Sada had told Tokio she'd been honestly surprised that their father had fought her so hard about leaving home. She'd thought it was because the old man didn't want to relinquish his control over her, but nothing Kojuro had said had had anything to do with that. He'd been genuinely worried, Sada had said with more than a little surprise, about what Sada was going to do about food and shelter. He'd even told her that if she waited until she was twenty, he'd help her find an apartment or something, and pay some of her expenses until she could pay them herself, offers which had stunned Tokio—they were completely the opposite of everything Kojuro had been saying for the last three years.

"He said it'd be hard for me to find someone willing to let out a place to a teenager without someone to vouch for me," Sada added. "And man was he right—nobody wanted to give me the time of day. Only reason I finally found this place was because Etsu-chan's got a realtor friend. But it didn't come cheap. I think if I'd listened to Dad, we might have gotten a better deal."

But Sada hadn't wanted to live under her father's rules any longer; she was done, after eighteen rocky years. Tokio remembered, though, how Sada had looked a little sad at the turn of events, even though there was no denying she was happy to be out on her own. She would have liked, she told her sister with a small, rueful smile, to have left home on better terms with their father.

It wasn't until then that Tokio remembered her father's expression and realized that Kojuro undoubtedly felt the same way.

Sada and Kojuro had never again talked to each other. Sada asked after their father every now and again, but Kojuro never mentioned Sada at all. He didn't say her name or allude to the fact that he had another daughter. Still, Tokio made sure to tell her mother how Sada was doing when she knew her father was within ear shot, knowing that despite the fact that he never outwardly showed any interest in hearing news of his second born, inwardly, he probably wondered and worried over how she was.

Tokio didn't want to end up like that. She wasn't so hypocritical that she wouldn't admit to having always enjoyed being her father's favored child. It hadn't always been an easy position to hold, but she'd felt privileged to be held in such high esteem by her father. Kojuro talked about things with her that her mother didn't know about, that her brother, despite being the boy, would never hear about. He trusted her with information that no one else was privy to—she was, as Sada so often said, his Golden Child.

Consequently, she had an insight into her father and his motivations that her siblings lacked. Sada had always asked her why she never said anything when Kojuro made her do something that she didn't necessarily want to do. The answer, which she'd never given her sister, was that she didn't protest because she understood that her father thought this was the best way. And always, she'd trusted her father's judgment, because he had never yet steered her ill.

But now, with Saitou…Tokio had to admit that she wasn't sure her father was right this time, and it was an admission that did not come easily. Always, when her father disagreed with a decision of hers, he gave her solid, logical reasons for his disapproval. This time, she'd been given no such reasons—all she'd gotten was her father's disapproval, and it confused her because she couldn't understand it. And his hostility towards Saitou shocked and deeply wounded her.

So, she decided firmly, finally picking up the handset and dialing her father's house, she was going to call him up and talk to him. She was going to apologize for raising her voice to him and for leaving the way she had, but she wasn't going to go home. She was going to strike a deal with Kojuro, the way he had tried to with Sada all those years back—her father wasn't an unreasonable man, he was just stubborn. You needed to use the right approach with him, that's all, and Tokio understood her father, and how he worked, much better than her sister or brother or mother and—

"Hello," came Kojuro's grave, gravelly voice, and Tokio's throat seized for a moment, her heart leaping into her throat.

"Is someone there?" he asked after a pause, a slight edge of annoyance in his voice now.

"Yes," Tokio blurted, afraid he'd hang up and she'd lose her courage. "It's…hello, Papa…it's me…Tokioko."

There was absolute, dead silence from the other end for a long moment, and then Tokio drew in a deep breath and opened her mouth to begin her meticulously planned apology.

"I'll get your mother for you then," Kojuro said before she could say anything, and Tokio flinched, thrown off and stunned by the announcement.

Before she had the chance to tell him she wanted to talk to _him_, not her mother, Katsuko was on the line, and Tokio felt the blood drain from her face at the realization that she'd been dismissed by her father, who had never ever dismissed her in all the years she'd been alive.

Whatever he'd been doing, whenever Tokio had asked for his attention he'd always immediately given it to her. He was never too busy or too tired or too anything to speak with her. _Never_. For all his other faults, for all his other flaws, Kojuro had always made time for her, no matter the hour or day or his own feelings at the moment.

Well. Seemed like that had changed.

"Hello? Tokio? Are you all right?" Katsuko's worried voice broke through the chaos running rampant through her.

"Hi Mama," she said mechanically, her voice hoarse. "I'm fine."

_Except that Papa doesn't want to talk to me anymore._

"Are you sure? You don't sound well."

_I'm not—Papa doesn't want to talk to me._

"I'm fine Mama. Really. It's okay, everything's fine."

_I'm just not his Golden Child anymore, that's all._

"Are you really sure, sweetheart? You sound like you've been crying. Did something happen?"

_Yes…I've been disowned._

"No," Tokio murmured over the hot ball of tears stuck in her throat, "nothing happened Mama."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Saitou arrived home at twelve fifty-eight, he found a very solemn Eiji sitting at the table, obviously waiting for him by the light from the range, and paused.

Uh-oh.

"Why aren't you asleep?" he asked warily, not liking this scene at all.

"Tokio-oba's crying," Eiji said, and Saitou watched him in silence for a moment before his gaze went to the closed bedroom door. He caught faint sniffling sounds in the heavy silence that settled between them.

Saitou's eyes went back to Eiji, and he nodded.

"Go to bed," was all he said, and Eiji nodded and rose and tucked the chair he'd been using in, then padded back to his room, slipped in and slid the door shut.

Saitou carefully removed his wallet, gloves, badge, keys, and shoes from his person and set them down in their respective places, then unbuttoned his coat and shrugged out of it and took off his hat. He folded the coat over his forearm and tucked the hat under the same arm, then went to the bedroom door and slid it open.

The room was dark, and even with the light coming in from between the blinds it was hard to make out very much. But the light from the kitchen range, though faint, helped a little, and he made out a lump under the blankets in the middle of the bed. He had quickly figured out that when Tokio was alone and upset, she curled up in the center of the bed and hid under the blankets until he got home.

He stepped into the room and slid the door shut, then set his coat and hat aside and went to the bed.

"Oi," he said quietly. "I'm home."

"Welcome home," was the muffled reply, but the blankets weren't fooling him—the little hitch in her voice gave away that she was crying, even if he hadn't already known that because of the sniffling he'd heard.

"Come on out of there Chiisai," he said, sitting down. "What's a matter?"

Silence was his reply, and he sighed wearily, reached over and grabbed the blankets and yanked them off her.

Her back was to him, which he hadn't been expecting—she always curled up facing the door, waiting for him. He had no idea what this meant.

"Oi," he said, leaning over, nudging her gently. "Tokio? What's wrong?"

A sniffle, and a hiccup for good measure, and he started to get worried. She didn't get the hiccups from crying unless she'd been crying really hard.

He leaned over her so she was curled up between the arm supporting his weight and his body, and gently petted her hair.

"Tokio, what's wrong?" he murmured, leaning over to press his forehead against the side of her head.

"Papa doesn't wanna talk to me anymore," she told him, voice small, and hiccupped again.

He frowned, just barely able to keep from saying she didn't want to talk to that asshole anyway, and decided then and there that he was never going to understand Tokio and her relationship with her father, or why it was so important to her.

Yeah, the guy was her father, but a person could only tolerate so much before even familial bonds snapped under the pressure—wasn't her sister example enough?

But he kept quiet and didn't say any of that, because it'd just make her feel worse and that wasn't what he wanted to happen.

"I called him today, to talk to him, and he just handed the phone over to Mama," she told him in that sad little voice that he hated because even if he hadn't had anything to do with making her talk in it, he always felt like it was his fault somehow. And he always felt even worse when he _was_ the cause of that voice. "He didn't even say hello, or anything, he just said he'd put Mama on and he did and I didn't get to talk to him at all."

Her voice was shaking badly, making it hard for him to understand what she was saying very well, and he was just beginning to get an idea of how upset she actually was. He was also beginning to get the idea that this was maybe a little more than he could handle on his own, especially since he was decidedly biased against Kojuro, to understate in massive proportions.

Really, he thought, he was way out of his element here.

"He doesn't wanna talk to me anymore Hajime," she said, voice hitching. "Papa handed the phone over to Mama like I was Sada calling, like he couldn't stand to talk to me." Her voice broke at the end of that sentence and made his heart hurt, made it jerk painfully, and he smoothed her hair back with his thumb and kissed her cheek, wondering what he was supposed to do to make her stop hurting. She moved her head and he lifted his up so she could turn her head and look at him. "Papa didn't want to talk to me."

He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers.

"You want me to call your sister?" he asked.

"No."

"You want me to call your father?"

"No," she choked out.

"What do you want me to do, Chiisai?" he asked, not unkindly. "You tell me, I'll do it. Whatever you want."

"Stay," she said, finally moving so she could reach up and hug him and bury her face in the crook of his neck.

_I really fucking hate you, old man_, Saitou thought, kissing Tokio's temple.

"Okay Chiisai," he said, nuzzling her hair. "I'll stay."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Is Tokio-oba okay?" Eiji asked the next morning, rubbing his eyes and yawning as he stumbled to the table to sit down for breakfast.

"Depends on how you define 'okay'," Saitou muttered.

"That's not an answer," Eiji complained, frowning at the older man's back.

"Shut up and eat your breakfast," Saitou ordered.

"There's no food at the table yet," the boy pointed out.

"Then just shut up." was the reply.

"Jerk," Eiji muttered, flopping down into his usual seat.

The response to that was a whack the back of the head when Saitou set down a plate with toast for him to occupy himself with while Saitou threw something more or less edible together.

"Ow!" Eiji yelped, clutching his head. "Tokio-oba told you not to hit me anymore!"

"Well stop acting like you need to get hit and we'll talk," Saitou replied, going back to the kitchen.

Eiji rubbed his abused skull and sent Saitou a nasty look.

"You're just pickin' on me 'cause Tokio-oba's not here," he accused.

"Feh," was Saitou's assessment. "You're not that special, kid."

Tokio heard the entire back and forth through the shut bedroom door.

She'd slowly awakened and found herself alone, on Saitou's side of the bed. Finding this turn of events odd, she'd checked the time on Saitou's pocket watch and found it was way past when she should have been up and getting ready to go to the museum. But she hadn't really felt like getting up just yet, so she'd settled back down on Saitou's side of the bed and listened to the sounds of Saitou moving around the apartment. She'd smiled a little, amused, when she'd heard him go into Eiji's room to wake the boy up; he might have been very sweet and gentle about getting her up, but those rules apparently didn't apply to poor Eiji.

Usually, that was her job. Saitou had started getting her up early so she could wake Eiji up and get his lunch together and still have enough time to get ready herself. She also left the apartment earlier now, since she walked Eiji to school.

Things had changed again, now that it had been decided Eiji was going to be staying with them permanently, but not for the worse.

She and Eiji had gone together to enroll him in an elementary school not too far away, since he couldn't stay at the one he'd been going to in Nakano Ward. Eiji hadn't minded the change in the least:

"I didn't really like it there anyway," he'd confided.

They'd also bought him a bureau, as she'd said they would. Eiji had assured her that he didn't want a bedroom set, that just a bureau was fine and the fold out couch was fine too. She'd agreed only because Saitou had told her to hold off on that for a while, now wasn't a convenient time for that kind of expense.

"Gimme a couple of months," he said. "Then we'll figure something out."

Her brother had come over to help get the bureau in, and had also gifted Eiji with his old PlayStation 2 and a few games he didn't play anymore that were age appropriate (that had been Tokio's one stipulation when her brother had told her of his intention; Morinusuke'd been surprised at first by the news that his sister and Saitou had taken a kid in, but he'd pretty much taken it in stride). Eiji had been stunned and delighted by the unexpected gifts. Saitou hadn't been pleased, but Tokio had coaxed him into not making a fuss over the video games.

In true Saitou form, however, he'd informed Eiji that homework and good marks came before video games, and any failing in either would result in the swift and immediate removal of the game system from the apartment. Neither Tokio nor Morinusuke had been adverse to that condition, and Eiji had known better than to argue a losing cause.

The living room wasn't much of a living room anymore. All of Eiji's things from the apartment he'd shared with his brother had been moved in, and were usually (much to the perpetual horror of Saitou's OCD) scattered around the room. His brother's personal effects had been packed up and stored away in the apartment, Eiji's to do with as he pleased whenever he wanted. Other things, like Eiichirou's clothing, had been donated.

A yelp from Eiji interrupted Tokio's musing, and she heard the boy complain about being whacked again:

"…that for?!" Eiji demanded.

"I told you to shut up and eat," Saitou said.

"I was!"

"Playing with your food isn't eating."

"It don't look like food," Eiji shot back.

"It's it _doesn't_ look like food, and watch it, smart ass," was Saitou's reply. "You don't bite the hand that feeds you."

"Well what if the hand that feeds you's feedin' you somethin' gross?" was Eiji's more-than-a-little smug rejoinder, and Tokio decided she should probably put in an appearance before Eiji got whacked again.

She slid the door open in time to hear Eiji let out another yelp, and she sighed; oh well.

"Stop hittin' me!" Eiji snapped, glaring at Saitou, who returned the glare, with interest.

"Stop bein' a smart ass," Saitou snapped back.

"I'll tell Tokio-oba!" Eiji threatened.

"Feh—that supposed to scare me?" Saitou replied with a sneer.

"Maybe it should," Tokio said dryly from the bedroom doorway, arms crossed over her chest and more than a little amused.

The two turned their attention over to her, and Eiji's gaze immediately brightened.

"Tokio-oba!" he said, rubbing the spot on his head that had been newly thumped, then sent Saitou a smirk. "Hajime-oji's bein' mean to me again."

"Tattletale," Saitou muttered.

"Am not!"

"Are so."

Eiji sent him a resentful look, then smirked again.

"Oh yeah? Well you still can't cook, so _there_."

Saitou sent him a narrow eyed glare, and Tokio smiled and was just barely able to keep from laughing.

"All right you two, break it up," she ordered, walking into the main room. "I'll fix breakfast, all right?"

"Thank the gods," Eiji said. "I thought Hajime-oji was tryin' a kill me."

"Now why would I want to do that, I wonder," Saitou said with a meaningful look in the boy's direction, and Tokio's smile widened.

Saitou and Eiji bickered back and forth in a manner that reminded her of Enishi and Kamatari, and it brightened her mood a little. Yesterday had not been a good day by any stretch of the imagination, and it still hurt her deeply her father had cut her loose. But, she thought with a fond grin, she had the two males sitting at the table behind her on her side, and while that didn't make up for it, it was enough that they were there with her and cared.

"Ow!"

"Hajime!"

"What?"

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"How come Tokio-oba was cryin' last night?" Eiji asked Hajime-oji as they sat in one of the Bunkyo precinct's unmarked cars later that day.

It was Saturday, and Eiji was with Hajime-oji because he needed to get a few things for an upcoming school project, and Tokio-oba was occupied with " boring museum business," as she'd put it. Hajime-oji himself was also working, but he was on his lunch hour now, so it was okay.

More or less.

"'Cause her father's a dickhead," Hajime-oji replied, frowning at the traffic they were stuck in.

Eiji raised an eyebrow and observed his guardian.

"Don't like him, huh?"

"How'd you guess?" Hajime-oji muttered sarcastically, taking his cigarette from his mouth and flicking ash off the tip into the car's ash tray.

Eiji didn't reply, and they sat in silence for a while longer.

"Is she gonna be okay?" he asked finally.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Hajime-oji replied. "She's tougher'n she looks."

"She still looked sad this morning," Eiji noted.

"She's gonna be that way for a while," Hajime-oji said. "Don't worry about it."

Eiji sent him an annoyed look.

"Shouldn't we do somethin' to make her happy again?"

"Only thing that'll make her happy is if her father stops actin' like a dickhead, and I don't see that happening any time soon," Hajime-oji retorted. "Just wait it out."

Eiji gave up and sat back and decided Hajime-oji was a retard and no help—if he was going to help Tokio-oba be happy again, he'd just have to do it himself.

The radio in the car suddenly crackled to life, and Okita-san's voice barked,

"Hajime! Answer me, damn it!"

Hajime-oji growled something unintelligible and swiped the handset up and snapped,

"What?"

"We need you to get your ass back over here pronto—The Dick's here and causin' problems."

"So shoot him!" Hajime-oji shouted, exasperated.

"I'm serious, you bastard," Okita-san replied, annoyed now.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Hajime-oji muttered. "What's with you retards? I'm gone for less than an hour and everything goes straight to hell!"

"Just get over here!" Okita-san snapped.

"Fine!" Hajime-oji snapped back, tossing the handset onto the dashboard. "Nancy boys," he muttered, glaring. "Won't take a shit without my say-so. Jesus Christ." He glanced over at Eiji, who was watching him with both eyebrows raised. "Make sure your seatbelt's on tight," he ordered as the traffic began to move. "We're takin' a short cut."

"Short cut?" Eiji repeated, but tugged on his seatbelt to make sure it was still buckled good and tight—he didn't like the sound of either the order or the words "short cut."

As it turned out, he had every right to be wary—the short cut turned out to be a series of back streets. Which wouldn't have been so bad, really, if Hajime-oji hadn't been speeding down them fast enough to make Superman look like an old geezer.

How they reached the precinct without killing anyone (themselves included) was a total mystery to Eiji, who had to peel his hands off the dashboard.

"All right?" Hajime-oji asked calmly as Eiji shakily got out of the car.

"Uh-huh," Eiji replied, nodding. He looked up at Hajime-oji, wide-eyed, for a second, then looked at the car; the tires were still smoking from the abrupt stop they'd shrieked to. "That was scary."

"Yeah, well," was Hajime-oji's nonchalant response, complete with one-shouldered shrug.

A pause.

"Can we do it again?" Eiji asked, and Hajime-oji considered him for a beat, one eyebrow raised, before reaching over and ruffling his hair.

"Don't tell Tokio and we'll see," he said, and Eiji grinned and then scrambled up the precinct stairs after him.

When they arrived at the officers' office, they found Himura-san, Okita-san and Shinomori-san standing in various states of pissed off before a man Eiji had never seen before. The guy was tall (though he didn't have anything on Hajime-oji and Okita-san), and wearing a suit and tie. He had glasses and a smarmy smirk on his face that looked like an oilier, more unpleasant version of Hajime-oji's, and Eiji decided he didn't like the guy, whoever he was.

When he saw Hajime-oji, the guy said,

"Ah, the Head Neanderthal arrives at long last."

"Whaddya want, asshole?" Hajime-oji demanded, kicking the office door shut. "We have work to do."

But the guy's attention was now on Eiji, who was watching him with visible distaste.

"Good gods, you decided to procreate," the guy said with a sneer.

"Hajime-oji's my guardian," Eiji coldly informed him. "He took me in after some third-rate yakuza scum named Senkaku _murdered_ my brother."

The officers sent Eiji grins of approval that he didn't quite understand (Okita-san sent him two thumbs-up), and then Hajime-oji dryly asked,

"I dunno Souji, what do you think?"

Okita-san licked his forefinger and drew a vertical line in the air in front of his face while making a sizzling sound:

"Eiji-kun: one—The Dick: zero," was Okita-san's assessment, complete with gleeful smirk.

"Allow us to introduce you, Matsumoto," Shinomori-san coolly said. "The young boy is Mishima Eiji, younger brother of the late Mishima Eiichirou, the man your client _murdered_."

Eiji stiffened and stared at the man, Matsumoto.

"You're _helping_ that scumbag?" Eiji demanded.

"Yup, he sure is," Okita-san answered helpfully (his smile sweet and evil all at once) before Matsumoto could.

Hajime-oji settled a restraining hand on Eiji's head, and remarked,

"And here I thought you couldn't be more hated within the confines of this room. That's some powerful talent you got there, Matsumoto."

Matsumoto's face was red and he was glaring at Hajime-oji like he wished the tall officer would burst into flames, or drop stone cold dead at his feet. Eiji tilted his head back to look up at Hajime-oji, and his guardian was smirking at Matsumoto in that special way that Eiji had quickly learned meant Hajime-oji was about to throw down an ass-whooping of mythical proportions.

He'd seen Hajime-oji send that same smirk Okita-san's way far too many times in the past couple of weeks not to have recognized what it meant by now.

More vertical lines with accompanying sizzling sounds from Okita-san.

"Hajime: one and a half—The Dick: still zero." He grinned at Matsumoto. "You're just _lettin'_ us pwn you today, aren't you?"

"This one isn't complaining," Himura-san dryly piped up, one eyebrow raised, and Okita-san slapped his shoulder in approval and nearly knocked the smaller man over. Himura-san sent him a glare that Okita-san either didn't notice or chose to ignore.

"So, did you need anything?" Hajime-oji asked in feigned pleasantness. "Or'd you just" (here Hajime-oji shrugged) "feel like a little verbal abuse?"

Matsumoto's red face got redder (Eiji kept waiting for him to explode), but he didn't reply. Instead, he slammed his brief case down on Brother's desk (Eiji bristled and made a move to run forward and knock the jerk's brief case off Brother's desk, but Hajime-oji tightened his grip on Eiji's head and wouldn't let him move), flipped it open and snatched some important looking documents up and all but threw them at Hajime-oji, who calmly took them and looked them over.

"Huh," Hajime-oji finally said, sounding only mildly interested, and Eiji strained and squirmed under his guardian's grasp to get a look at the documents.

"I expect you can appreciate the seriousness of the charge," Matsumoto said, sounding smug, and Eiji sent him a dirty look.

"What the fuck did you do?" Okita-san demanded, all joking and joviality gone from his face, and Shinomori-san and Himura-san weren't looking too friendly either.

"Oh he just filed a complaint against us," Hajime-oji nonchalantly said, and Eiji stiffened in shock.

Matsumoto's smirk widened, and Okita-san and Shinomori-san looked furious. Himura-san, however, simply smiled all of a sudden, and Eiji wondered what it was the redhead knew that the others seemed to be ignorant of.

"Oi, Eiji," Hajime-oji said suddenly, and Eiji looked back up at his guardian and found Hajime-oji watching him. "Do me a favor, huh? Hold these for a second."

"Yes sir," Eiji immediately said, taking the papers he was handed, and watched as Hajime-oji then reached into his coat and took hold of something.

He gestured for Eiji to give him back the papers, which the boy did reluctantly, then watched as Hajime-oji's lighter magically appeared. Before Matsumoto could say a word, Hajime-oji had flipped the lid of his lighter, produced a nice, big flame and set the documents on fire. He snapped his lighter shut with a loud, satisfying click, pocketed it again and looked at a horrified Matsumoto.

"Anything else?" he asked pleasantly.

"Are you fucking _insane_?!" Matsumoto bellowed. "Those are _official court documents_!!"

"Yeah I know—they burn great, by the way," Hajime-oji replied. "Everything you've been sendin' us 's been burnin' like you've been dousin' it in gasoline first." He looked down at Eiji. "Grab a wastebasket."

Eiji sent Matsumoto a satisfied smirk as he said,

"Yes sir,"

and did as he was told. Hajime-oji dropped the burning documents into the wastebasket as soon as Eiji had placed it down next to him.

"You can't just burn court documents you idiot!" Matsumoto shouted, looking like he was ready to tear out his perfectly coiffed hair in big, messy clumps.

"And you can't just file complaints against us, Matsumoto," Himura-san piped up evenly. "You're a fool if you believed the MPD would have done anything different with your complaint than what Saitou's done."

"Actually I think the Superintendent General woulda used it to wipe his ass with," Okita-san offered, having apparently realized whatever it was Himura-san had.

"You're dreaming if you think you can get anywhere by filing a complaint against us," Hajime-oji said, crossing his hands over his chest and sending Matsumoto that smirk. "Or have you forgotten that we have a spotless, golden record with the MPD? That we're the MPD's most celebrated team? And that we just delivered Wu Heishin to the Japanese government on a silver platter?"

"And that we're all up for _sweet_ promotions for it," Okita-san added with a silly roll of his eyes, but a smile that put Eiji in mind of a demon.

He edged a little closer to Hajime-oji and shuddered, then decided watching Matsumoto finally explode was a better idea.

Blood and guts were much less traumatizing than Okita-san's demonic smiling.

Unfortunately, Matsumoto didn't explode. He just stared at Hajime-oji, red-faced and furious, for a long time in silence, then slammed his brief case shut, snatched it off the table and strode for the door. Hajime-oji obligingly moved aside, taking Eiji with him, and Matsumoto whipped the door open and stormed out.

"Oi, Matsumoto," Hajime-oji said, and Matsumoto paused and looked over his shoulder. "You forgot your official court documents," Hajime-oji informed him, and used his foot to send the now smoking-in-earnest wastebasket skittering in Matsumoto's direction. Matsumoto jumped out of the way and sent Hajime-oji a still furious but vaguely smug look.

"Missed," he said, and Hajime-oji grinned widely at him.

"Nope," he said, and a second later the smoke alarms went off and the sprinkler system activated.

Hajime-oji then kicked the door shut, ambled over to his desk and sat down behind it, propped his feet up and folded his hands behind his head, and smiling thoughtfully, said,

"Yeah—feels like a good day."

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

An hour later, after promising Hajime-oji that he wouldn't tell Tokio-oba about what had happened at the precinct with Matsumoto ("She'll say some shit about me picking a fight again," he'd said by way of explanation), he was dropped off at Nanao-obaa-san's until Tokio-oba or Hajime-oji got home, whoever arrived first.

He didn't mind in the least, because he got to hang out with Soujiro-kun, and Eiji was in awe of the high schooler, who was captain of his school's kendo club…as an underclassman.

It was nothing short of cool, as far as Eiji was concerned.

The older boy also read the best manga, and his collection made Eiji rabidly jealous. It was hard to nurse that jealousy and keep it alive, though, because Soujiro-kun was so nice and let Eiji borrow as many of his manga as he wanted. In the face of such generosity, jealousy didn't stand much hope—would've been easier if Soujiro-kun had been a jerk-off like some of the kids at Eiji's old school.

This afternoon found them in Soujiro-kun's room. Soujiro-kun was at his desk, studying for an upcoming exam. Eiji was sitting at the foot of the older boy's bed reading manga and absently petting Tsukiko the Akita's head as she lay next to him. She'd had a litter of puppies a while back, and one of them, the runt of the litter who was completely white except for a black mask over most of his face, was asleep in his lap. The other puppies were curled up next to their dam, also asleep.

Soujiro-kun suddenly tossed down the pencil he'd been holding and pushed back from his desk.

"Break time," he announced, and looked over at Eiji. "So, Eiji-kun, how's your day been?"

Eiji smirked faintly, wondering how Soujiro-kun had caught on that the short recitation of his day that he'd given Nanao-obaa-san had been only the tip of the iceberg.

So he told his friend about the car ride through the back streets of Bunkyo Ward and then about the confrontation with Matsumoto in the office, and was pleased by the impressed look on Soujiro-kun's face. Maybe he wasn't captain of a kendo club as an underclassman, and maybe he didn't have sick kendo skills, but he had one wicked cool guardian in Hajime-oji, and that more than made up for it.

"How come the sprinklers didn't go off in the office, though?" Soujiro-kun asked thoughtfully, and Eiji grinned wider.

"Hajime-oji deactivated 'em 'cause he smokes in there a lot, and he'd set it off if they were on," he informed his older friend; he'd asked the same question earlier, after Chief Hijikata had come in, dripping wet and uber-pissed, to rage at Hajime-oji.

Soujiro-kun raised a surprised eyebrow.

"He must smoke like a chimney," he said.

Eiji shrugged.

"Okita-san says Hajime-oji's gotta be real stressed out to go through enough cigarettes to set off the sprinklers. But I think it happened once, 'cause I kinda got the feelin' it had when Okita-san and Himura-san were tellin' me about it."

Soujiro-kun grunted thoughtfully, then smiled and asked,

"So you enjoyed your morning with Saitou-san?"

Eiji nodded.

"Yup," he said.

"Kinda odd that you weren't with Tokio-san, though," Soujiro-kun remarked.

"She's too busy at the museum today," Eiji replied. "Usually, I don't care, 'cause I like goin' there. But today I didn't really wanna hang around. I guess I'd feel like a pain after this morning."

"What happened this morning?"

"Well, nothin'," Eiji admitted, "but she was still kinda sad from last night."

"Last night?" Soujiro-kun was frowning now. "Did she and Saitou-san have a fight?"

"Naw, I think she had a fight with her dad," Eiji confided. "She was really sad an' quiet when I went to the museum after school like usual, and she was actin' kinda weird durin' dinner. She still helped me with my homework—but it wasn't as much fun as usual, though. She wasn't really payin' a lot of attention, and she let me get away with a buncha dumb mistakes Hajime-oji woulda whacked me upside the head for. I didn't think it was anythin' real bad 'til she came outta the bath room after she took a shower. Her eyes were all red and puffy, like she'd been cryin', but she said she just got soap in 'em when I asked if she was okay. Later, though, after I went t' bed, I heard her cryin' through the wall, so I waited up for Hajime-oji t' tell him. He got real serious—I don't think he likes it very much when she cries," Eiji quietly said.

"How'd you know it was her dad?" Soujiro-kun asked after a beat.

"Hajime-oji told me today," Eiji replied, looking down at the puppy still sleeping in his lap. He petted him slowly, deciding he was in agreement with Hajime-oji about not liking it when Tokio-oba cried. "He doesn't like Tokio-oba's dad. And if he makes her cry, I don't think I like him either."

The two of them sat quietly for a long while, and then Eiji murmured,

"I wanna make Tokio-oba happy again. I don't like it when she's sad."

And he really didn't—he liked cheerful, happy Tokio-oba who was silly and nice and funny and probably would have sparkled if she'd been an anime character. She even sort of looked like one, what with her big huge eyes and all.

He did not care for sad, droopy-looking Tokio-oba in the least.

"How were you planning on doing that?" Soujiro-kun asked, a funny sort of note to his voice, and Eiji looked up and found his older friend watching him with a weird light in his eyes, like he was plotting something great.

"Dunno," Eiji replied cautiously, then frowned as he remembered his earlier conversation with Hajime-oji on the subject. "I tried t' get Hajime-oji to help, but he's a dummy and wouldn't." He eyed his friend thoughtfully. "Why? You got a idea?"

"Maybe," Soujiro-kun said with a wide grin, and Eiji slowly returned it.

He might be able to get cheerful, happy Tokio-oba back after all.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Valentine's Day was both satisfying and bittersweet for Tokio this year.

She visited Akira at his home (he'd finally been released from the hospital a while back, under strict orders to take very good care of himself; Tomoe was religiously making sure he did as his doctors had ordered) and gave him his present, a white teddy bear with a corny purple heart asking to be hugged that Akira laughed at when he saw. He was looking better, but Tokio noticed he looked especially thrilled to see her and she stayed longer than she'd been planning, suspecting that Akira was lonely for company other than his wife during his convalescence, and promised to visit him again soon.

She got chocolates for Kamatari and his partner, and impressed her effeminate friend, as usual (which was getting harder and harder to do as the years passed), and gave Enishi his usual bag of M&Ms (she always made sure to give him the special Valentine's Day dyed ones and also always made sure to present them to him in the gaudiest, most frou-frou Valentine's Day baggie she could find; he always complained about the presentation and her insistence on getting the "girly colors" instead of the normal ones, saying it was aesthetically offensive to men everywhere…but he never refused it all the same). She got Saitou a gift as well, and made sure to get Eiji enough chocolate to kill a dog five times over.

Saitou accepted his gift with amusement, and admitted that he hadn't really realized what day it was, since he'd never really paid attention to Valentine's Day (this news did not surprise her in the least). Eiji was quite surprised and embarrassed by her gift for him, and was even more embarrassed when Saitou teased that Tokio's chocolates, added to the truckload he'd gotten from the girls at school (apparently their young ward was popular with his female classmates), could probably feed all of Japan for the rest of the millennium.

She'd also gotten her brother a little box of chocolates that she wrapped up specially for him, and, after much debate, a little box of chocolates, which she also specially wrapped, for her father that she had ended up being too afraid to give to her brother when he came by the museum after he got off work, before Eiji arrived.

Morinusuke seemed to know that she had a present for their father that she wanted very much for him to deliver for her, but when she hadn't given it to him, he hadn't said anything. He'd just thanked her for his, kissed her cheek and told her to expect something nice from her favorite little brother for White Day. She'd appreciated his attempt to cheer her up, but it hadn't really done much more than make her feel worse.

Since she'd been little, her mother had always bought her something to give to her father for Valentine's Day, and once she'd started working and could buy her own gifts, she'd continued the tradition.

This would be the first year that wouldn't happen.

She hadn't expected it to hurt as badly as it did.

Eiji's arrival helped with that, though, and she tucked the little box of chocolates for her father away and managed to forget about them until later that night.

One of the things she'd left behind the night she'd abruptly left her father's home, which Morinusuke had later brought to Saitou's apartment, had been her laptop, and when Eiji wasn't occupied with his PS2, he was on her laptop. She didn't really mind, since she hardly used the thing, and once she realized Eiji knew how to use it better than she did she had no qualms at all about letting him use it.

So he was in her and Saitou's room, sitting on the bed between them and looking up something that he and Saitou had made a bet on. The bet had interrupted Eiji's infamous language drills session with his guardian, and Tokio was reasonably sure that the drills had been completely forgotten, and she had no intention of reminding either of them about the unfinished session. Saitou wouldn't approve, probably, being the neurotic stickler he was, but she figured not finishing the drills for one night wouldn't ruin Eiji's marks for forever.

Her phone went off as she was watching Eiji do his search (and smiling at the snarky barbs he and Saitou were throwing back and forth), and she reluctantly answered it, digging through her purse to find the chirping offender. She had to dump about half of the contents out because she had forgotten to stick her phone in its little cell phone pouch, and it was sliding around in the bottom of her purse.

It turned out to be Kamatari, with Enishi on the other line, and a three-way argument about paint ensued for the next ten minutes before Tokio lost her temper and bellowed,

"We're using the damn paint I picked out and that's final! Now stop bitching about it!"

The other two were quiet for a long moment, and then Kamatari asked,

"Can we bitch about something else then?"

Tokio groaned.

"_Good-night_ Kamatari-chan," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow—and _don't_ call me back, because I'm turning my phone _off_ for the _rest_ of the night."

"Oh boo on you," Kamatari muttered.

"'Night Tokio," Enishi said, having gotten the hint.

"Good-night Enishi, see you tomorrow."

She clicked off before either one could say anything else and turned off her phone, then tossed in on the bedside table and turned back to Saitou and Eiji.

"Who's that for?" Eiji asked.

"Huh?" Tokio asked, blinking.

"That box," Saitou said, gesturing to something next to her with his nose, and she followed the direction of his gesture and saw her father's box of chocolates.

"Oh." Her shoulders slumped as she regarded it, and then she sighed, looked back up at them and said with feigned cheer, "No one. I accidentally bought it extra."

When Saitou and Eiji exchanged a suspicious look and then went back to eyeing her, she decided she probably needed to work on her lying.

"If ya bought it extra how come it's all wrapped up with a bow and everything?" Eiji asked.

"It came like that," Tokio replied.

"Did not," Eiji returned, and Tokio raised an eyebrow. "They don't wrap 'em up, an' even if they did, they'd put a fakey paper bow on it, not a real one."

"I buy nice chocolates," Tokio replied.

"Sure do," Saitou drawled, reaching over and deftly snatching the box from beside her before she had a chance to whack his hand away. "We ain't arguin' that, are we boy?"

"Nope," Eiji agreed. "We're just sayin' you didn't buy no nice chocolates extra by accident."

"Talk right, boy," Saitou ordered, looking the box over, and Eiji sent him an annoyed look.

"How come I hafta talk right and you don't?"

"'Cause I said so," was the reply, and Eiji rolled his eyes and muttered something low enough under his breath that Saitou couldn't make it out.

He still got thumped over the head, though.

"_OW_! You didn't even _hear_ what I said!" Eiji snapped, hands clutched over the top of his head.

"Didn't have to," Saitou said without so much as glancing at him.

"Hajime," Tokio said, voice holding warning.

"I barely tapped him," Saitou said, offended.

"_Why_ do you _do_ that?" she asked, exasperated as she leaned forward and rubbed Eiji's poor abused head.

"It's a very effective corrective measure, I'll have you know," Saitou returned snootily. "Grandpa used to use it on us all the time, and we never put a toe out of line."

Eiji snorted and crossed his arms over his chest and sent Saitou a "You're-so-full-of-it" look that would have earned him another thump if Saitou had been paying attention.

Tokio rolled her eyes and shook her head and sent Eiji a small, apologetic smile, and would have offered him some kind words if Saitou hadn't asked, with deceptive languor,

"How come you didn't give this to your father, Tokio?"

Her gaze flew up to meet his, and she was pinned by narrowed eyes at complete odds with the lazy tone of voice he'd asked his question in.

She felt Eiji's gaze on her now, and her eyes flickered down to his. He was watching her with more than a little curiosity. Her gaze returned to her Wolf's—the topic of her father was a sore one between them (especially after the night he'd spent consoling her the day her father had refused to speak to her), and he would not take kindly to being made to wait for an answer.

"Who said it was for my father?" she asked finally, with deceptive lightness, and he narrowed his eyes further, obviously not liking her answer.

"Oh?" he drawled. "So then who's it for?"

"Hajime," she said with a tight smile, "now hardly seems like the proper place—"

"Oh it is," he assured her.

Tokio eyed him and ignored the box he was holding just outside her line of vision—or appeared to. She didn't know if she'd be able to get it away from him, if she'd be quite quick enough, but she was going to give it a try. It helped that she knew he thought she was trying to come up with an explanation; he was wearing his "I'm-waiting-for-your-pitiful-excuses" look, not his suspicious, paranoid one.

Her hand shot out and she successfully snatched the box out of his hand, and had the added bonus of seeing his surprise when she did it.

"Thank you," she said primly, reaching over and dropping the box back into her purse. "Now, don't you two have a bet to settle?"

"Oi, you didn't answer—" Saitou began, frowning and very annoyed with her.

"That's right!" Eiji said suddenly, poking Saitou in the jaw. "We got a bet! Stop changin' the subject 'cause you know you're gonna lose!"

"She didn't answer my question," Saitou snapped, rubbing the spot Eiji had poked and glaring at the boy, who sent him a superior look.

"The bet came first," he loftily said. "An' if I'm right, you owe me a thousand yen."

"Bullshit you little cheat!" Saitou barked, outraged. "The agreement was nine hundred yen!"

"The rate just went up."

She had no idea if Eiji was picking a fight with Saitou on purpose to get the heat off of her, but even if he wasn't and she was affording the boy more shrewdness than he actually possessed, she was still grateful. It'd give her a little time to think up a suitable excuse for when Saitou came back to the box of chocolates again as she knew he would.

And he did, much later, when the bet had been settled (Eiji had won on a technicality; because of that, Saitou maintained, he only deserved nine hundred yen, not a thousand, and Eiji had grudgingly given in and accepted the terms) and the boy was asleep.

"Who's the box for?" he asked.

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Let me guess—ignoring you won't work?" she asked dryly, hands on her hips.

"Who's the box for?" he repeated, ignoring her question.

She sighed.

"I'll take that as a yes," she muttered.

"You know, I can keep asking all night," Saitou remarked, one eyebrow raised. "It's sort of like Chinese Water Torture. You stay dry, but I still slowly drive you insane by asking the same question over and over again until your mind snaps or I get the information I want. And then your mind snaps," he added.

"You're creepy sometimes," she commented, considering him.

"Thank you," he said, totally serious. "Who's the box for?"

She groaned and threw herself down on the bed, arm over her eyes.

"Why do you care?" she whined.

She felt him poke her in the side and she jumped and flinched away.

"Because," he replied. "Who's the box for?"

Tokio sighed, lifted her arm off her eyes and rolled over on her stomach. She stacked her arms before her, settled her chin on them and wearily said,

"For Papa."

He was quiet for a minute, then sighed.

"I should've just shut up about the box," he muttered.

"Yup," she said, and was rewarded with another poke in the side.

"No one said to agree with me," he said, obviously annoyed that she had.

They were silent again for a while, and then he laid down next to her, on his back and looked over at her.

"How come you didn't give it to him?"

She pursed her lips, a little surprised—the reason she hadn't wanted to tell him who the gift was for was because she'd been sure he'd get all cranky and snippy about her bothering to buy her father anything. But he was taking it all surprisingly well, considering that any mention of her father usually made him twitch like an epileptic in the middle of a particularly bad seizure.

"I was going to," she assured him. "I had every intention of giving it to Morinusuke to give to him."

"But?" he prompted.

"I was afraid he wouldn't take it," she admitted.

"Your brother?"

"No!" she said, sending him an annoyed look. "Papa!"

He sent her an incredulous look.

"So what do you care?" he asked. "You wouldn't be there to know if he took it or not!"

"But Morinusuke would!" she replied. "And if Papa didn't take it, he'd get embarrassed and feel bad and he wouldn't tell me the truth and he'd lie about it to me!"

"So? You still wouldn't know!"

"I'd be making my little brother lie to me!" she snapped back, then snorted in disgust. "Ugh. Why do I even talk to you?"

"You don't want me for my brains, remember?" he dryly replied.

"Good thing for you, too," she muttered, and he glared at her.

"I'm going to ignore that," he informed her, "and not retaliate in the interests of getting to sleep some time tonight."

"_Whatever_," she replied under her breath and he reached over and whapped her on the ass.

"Shut up," he ordered. "Now look—I don't care one way or the other about whether or not your old man gets his box of chocolates from you, but I know you _do_ care, and you're gonna get all mopey and weird and shit if you don't give it to him. So since you're such a chicken shit, give 'em to me and I'll make sure he gets 'em."

"No," she immediately said.

"This isn't a negotiation, Tokio," he returned.

"You just want an excuse to pick a fight with Papa," she accused.

"I'm not gonna pick one in the middle of the Nerima Ward precinct, woman," he snapped, offended. "Gimme a little credit, would you?"

She eyed him, then pushed herself up on her elbows.

"You promise? You promise you won't pick a fight with Papa if I give you the box so you can give them to him?"

"Yeah," he wearily replied.

"Gimme your hand," she ordered.

"What? Why?"

"Give it," she snapped, and he rolled his eyes but gave her his hand.

She grabbed his pinky and wrapped hers around it, and said,

"Pinky swear."

"I am _not_ pinky swearing," he said flatly.

"Pinky swear it," she repeated, voice hard.

"I'm a thirty-fucking-one-year-old man, Tokio—I'm not going to pinky swear to not pick a fight with your father!"

"I'm not giving you the box then," she said, dropping his hand.

"_You_ don't have to—_I_ know where it is." he reminded her. "And since I get up before you do, I can just take it."

"No, you _think_ you know where it is," Tokio corrected, settling back down the way she'd been. "But I hid it while you were showering, 'cause I wasn't sure if you'd go looking for it later."

That appeared to give him pause, and Tokio watched him out of the corner of her eye as he eyed her.

"Bull," he decided. "You didn't hide shit."

She shrugged nonchalantly.

"Fine, go ahead and look if you think I'm lying," she said, closing her eyes.

She silently counted off how many seconds it would take for him to cave in. She'd purposely used "if you think I'm lying" rather than "if you don't believe me" because she'd learned a long time ago that the way you phrased a sentence had a profound impact on the way it was taken. The implication that he didn't believe her and the implication that he thought she was lying to him, while technically the same, were in fact wildly different. In the first one, her being a liar was only hinted at—in the second one, it was outright stated, and if he moved anywhere near her purse he'd be telling her he thought she was a liar. And she knew there was no way in all the seven hells that he was going to do that, because only a fool would start a fight like that, and he wasn't a fool (_usually_).

Tokio barely kept from smirking—feh: and Hiko thought she couldn't play mind games….

Eighty-three seconds later, Saitou sighed and nudged her:

"Fine, I'll pinky swear," he grumbled, and she smiled and opened her eyes and once more hooked her pinky around his.

And because by the grimace on his face she knew that his manly pride was offended by the entire proceeding, she thanked him and kissed him.

He wrapped an arm around her neck and dragged her down so she lay over him.

"Oi," he said, looking curious, "did you really hide the box?"

She smiled at him.

"Yes," she said. "In my purse."

It took a moment for that to process, and he glared at her.

"That was dirty," he growled.

"Yup," she agreed, smile widening. She leaned over and kissed the end of his nose. "No one ever got anywhere playing nice, remember?"

He sighed and closed his eyes.

"Fuck," he muttered. "Between you and the kid, I'll go broke and lose my fucking mind all in one fell swoop."

"Oh no," Tokio assured, "we'll flip for who gets to ruin you."

Saitou's response was to groan and laugh.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"What?" Saitou snapped the next morning after Eiji had been standing next to him for two minutes in silence, watching him shave.

"How come your face's so hairy?" Eiji immediately asked—geez, it was like Saitou'd flipped a switch or something.

"Because," Saitou muttered, carefully eyeing his reflection so he wouldn't slice his face wide open.

That hadn't ever happened, of course, but better safe than sorry.

"That's not an answer," Eiji complained.

"Tough shit," Saitou replied. "Go bother Tokio."

"I am _not_ bein' a bother," Eiji said, offended. "I didn't even say nothin' 'til you said 'What'."

"First of all, brat, creepy staring _is_ being a bother," Saitou replied. "Second of all, it's 'I didn't even say _anything_,' and third of all, I _asked_ you 'what,' I didn't _say_ 'what'."

Eiji eyed him for several long moments, then said,

"You're crankier in the mornin' huh?"

"I'm going to whack you so hard your children's children will feel it," Saitou threatened, "if you don't scram right now and stop bothering me."

"But I didn't do noth—_anything_," Eiji corrected at a glare from Saitou. The boy sent Saitou an offended look and crossed his arms over his chest. "Brother always let me watch him shave."

"I'm not your brother," Saitou replied, going back to his reflection.

"You're hairier," Eiji said in what Saitou took to be an attempt at agreement, and the older man's left eyelid twitched—noticeably. "Oi, what's a matter with your eye, Hajime-oji?"

Because not answering was safer than answering, Saitou ignored the question and tried to ignore the boy.

The truth of the matter was that Eiji's watching, specifically, bothered him; Tokio had watched him shave a few times, and he hadn't minded. Hell, he'd even sort of liked the attention—it was cute, the way she sometimes sat on the edge of the sink counter to watch. When he'd asked what was so utterly fascinating about the whole process, she'd shrugged and said it was interesting.

"Why?" he'd asked, honestly curious.

She shrugged again.

"Just is," she said.

But Eiji was a different matter altogether. There was something very uncomfortable about the whole thing, and it took several moments for the reason for his discomfort to dawn on him: it was something a boy would have done with his father, watching him shave.

Saitou himself had done it when he'd been small, demanding that his father let him watch. Yuusuke had cheerfully obliged every time, even if it meant an added ten minutes to the process when he invariably cut the crap out of himself three times because he was too busy answering his son's questions to pay attention to what he was doing.

Saitou had learned how to shave (or rather, how _not_ to shave) from his father by example. It was something very…well, father-son-bonding-like, and it weirded Saitou out when he realized that was pretty much what he was doing with Eiji by allowing the boy to stay and watch.

"How come you don't use a 'lectric one?" Eiji asked suddenly.

"A what?"

"How come you don't use a 'lectric one?" Eiji repeated. "Brother had a 'lectric one, he never used that," he added, pointing to the razor in Saitou's hand.

"This's better'n an electric one," Saitou replied.

Eiji looked dubious.

"Who said?"

"I said."

"So?"

"Just shut up and watch, all right?"

Eiji straightened, looking surprised.

"I can stay?"

"Did I toss you out?"

"I thought I was bein' a bother."

"Oh you are," Saitou assured, sending him a dry look.

Eiji frowned at him.

"There's a name for people like you," the boy informed him snootily.

"And if you wanna keep all your teeth, you won't say it."

He was able to get through the process without pulling a Yuusuke and nearly cutting his face off, and without really snapping too much at the boy. Eiji, for his part, seemed to have gotten used to Saitou's brusqueness and simply shrugged it off for the most part, more interested in knowing why he had to use shaving cream with the razor when he wouldn't have needed to bother with an electric one.

They left the bath room, Eiji hounding his heels and demanding to know exactly why shaving cream was necessary with a regular razor. Saitou used to know the answer to that (his father had made up some ridiculous response that Saitou had, as a seven-year-old, known was complete crap; he'd asked his grandfather later and gotten a real answer), but currently was drawing a blank.

"Dunno," he said finally as he shrugged into his shirt and began buttoning it.

Eiji wrinkled his nose, not pleased with the reply; he was sitting on the unmade bed lotus style, hands clasped around his ankle.

"So you use it without knowin' how come?" he asked.

"Look, kid, you're supposed to use shaving cream with a regular razor," Saitou said wearily, tucking his shirt in.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because."

"But because why?"

"Because."

"That's not a real answer Hajime-oji!" the boy whined.

"Look it up then," Saitou shot back. "The hell do I look like, an encyclopedia?"

"It's stupid to do somethin' without knowin' why you're doin' it," Eiji announced.

Saitou ignored him again, and the boy let out an annoyed huff, then crawled across the bed, leaned over and grabbed Tokio's laptop up off the floor from where she'd set it down last night, then sat up and plopped it down on the bed, apparently deciding to do what Saitou had rather irritably told him to do.

Tokio breezed in, and then paused, surprised, to see Eiji on her laptop.

"Hey," she greeted, "wha'cha doin'?"

"Lookin' up somethin', 'cause Hajime-oji won't tell me," Eiji replied, his eyes flickering in Saitou's direction with obvious annoyance.

Intrigued by this information, she joined the boy on the bed and peeked over his shoulder. Saitou, knowing that allowing her to stay there would put her and the boy behind schedule, said,

"Oi, don't you have to get his bento ready?"

"Done already," she said absently.

He raised an eyebrow.

"You are not," he said, voice tinged with disbelief, and she sent him a flat look.

"You're a jerk," she simply informed him, and Eiji nodded, gaze still on the screen.

Saitou reached over and snatched the laptop out of the boy's grasp.

"Oi!" Eiji snapped.

"Go comb your hair," Saitou ordered. "Then tuck in your damn shirt like I keep telling you to, and put on your belt."

"I never hadda tuck in my shirt before," Eiji muttered, hopping off the bed to nevertheless do as his guardian had ordered. "Or wear a belt, either."

"Well you do now," Saitou said, jerking his head in the direction of the bath room. "Move your ass."

The boy rolled his eyes and left the room, and Saitou set the laptop down on the bed and went back to his own belt. Tokio watched him in amusement.

"Hajime, why are you so short with him?"

"I'm short with everyone," Saitou muttered, buckling the belt, and moving over to the bedside table to get his pocket watch.

Tokio snagged him by the waist of his trousers as he went by and tugged. He paused, one eyebrow raised, and sent her a questioning look. She only grinned and got up on her knees and put her arms around his neck.

"What?" he asked, though he wasn't annoyed—intrigued like hell, but not annoyed.

His reply was one of those weird grins of hers that told him she was pleased with him for some reason that was not immediately noticeable to him, and a kiss.

"Don't be such a hard-ass," she ordered.

He blinked, then frowned.

"I thought I was going to be complimented," he muttered, and she grinned wider.

"Your ego's healthy enough, thank you," she said primly.

"Feh," was his opinion of that remark, and she laughed and kissed him again.

"Aw, gross," came Eiji's voice from the doorway.

"Well nobody told you to come back in here," Saitou snapped in annoyance at being interrupted, and Tokio shook her head and sighed (she was smiling, though) and poked him.

"Be nice," she chided as Eiji entered the room.

"I hadda come back here, 'cause the laptop's here an' you won't tell me about shaving cream," he said, climbing back up on the bed to retrieve the laptop.

Tokio raised an eyebrow and looked back and forth between them.

"You two get into the _weirdest_ arguments," she murmured, shaking her head.

"Freeze brat," Saitou ordered, ignoring her comment. He grabbed the boy by the shirt collar just before he reached the laptop and deposited him on his feet on the floor. "You know the drill."

Eiji sighed and rolled his eyes, but submitted to Saitou's perusal.

"That hair isn't combed," Saitou said after a moment; the shirt was tucked in and the belt was present and accounted for.

"Is too," Eiji said.

"Either you're lying or you have no idea how to use a hair brush," Saitou replied. "You don't look any different than you did when you left."

"I combed it like you said."

"He looks fine," Tokio piped up, and he sent her a look that told her her opinion was _not_ welcome.

Eiji puffed up his chest and sent Saitou a challenging look.

"See? Tokio-oba said I looked okay."

And Saitou wasn't fool enough to start a fight by saying he didn't care what "Tokio-oba" said.

So instead he ordered,

"Fix your collar."

"You're the one who messed it up," Eiji muttered.

"What was that?" Saitou asked, eyes narrowing—he'd heard just fine.

"Nothin'," Eiji quickly replied, reaching up to fix the offending collar. "Now?"

"I suppose," Saitou said, frowning at his hair; geez, kids these days.

The boy clambered back up onto the bed and went back to the laptop, and Saitou eyed his messy hair with distaste; Tokio grinned in amusement at his expression.

"You're _dying_ to comb it, aren't you?" she asked.

"He didn't comb shit," Saitou muttered. "I bet he didn't even look at it."

"Not all of us are as obsessively neat as you are, Hajime," she said, patting his arm.

"Oh go make breakfast," he muttered, and she sent him a cheeky smile.

"Done," she chirped.

Someone began knocking at the door just then, and Tokio said she'd get it. Since she was dressed already and not in her robe, he didn't have any objections and didn't stop her when she flounced out of the room. He took his pocket watch off the bedside table and clipped the chain to his belt as usual, and then flipped it open to both check the time and make sure it was all right.

"Can I see?" Eiji asked, and Saitou silently handed the time piece to the boy, as usual; Eiji often watched Saitou get himself put together, always expressing wonder at the fact that he didn't need a mirror to tie his tie, and always asking to see the pocket watch.

"And it's '_May_ I see'," Saitou corrected, gently thumping the top of boy's head with his knuckles.

"Yeah yeah yeah," Eiji muttered absently, examining the watch face. He looked up at Saitou. "Ya think Tokio-oba'd get me one if I asked?"

"You aren't getting one until you hit twenty, brat," Saitou replied, taking his pocket watch back and snapping it shut before sliding it into his pocket.

Eiji pouted.

"How come?" he asked.

Before Saitou could answer, they heard Tokio let out a shriek and he leapt over the bed and bolted out of the room before it occurred to him that the shriek had not been one of either fear or pain. This was verified when he saw his girlfriend cuddling a little white ball of fur and cooing,

"Puppy!"

_Puppy?_

"Where the hell did that come from?" he demanded as Eiji wiggled around him to see what was going on.

"Soujiro-kun!" the boy said in surprised delight, and that was when Saitou noticed the grinning boy standing in his doorway.

Said boy bowed to Saitou.

"Good morning Saitou-san, Eiji-kun."

"Oi, is that one of Tsukiko's?" Eiji asked, going over to Tokio to get a closer look at the puppy she was cooing over.

"Uh-huh," he cheerfully said. "They're big enough to leave her now, so Grandma and I are looking for people to give or sell them to. I thought this one would suit Tokio-san."

"We're not keeping the dog," Saitou said brusquely, and Soujiro and Eiji blinked, startled by the blunt announcement.

"Huh?" Eiji asked after a second.

"You heard me," Saitou said. "We aren't keeping it."

"But Soujiro-kun gave it t' Tokio-oba, not you," Eiji protested.

"And? I live here too, you know."

"But it was a gift for Tokio-oba!"

"And a damn thoughtless one," Saitou snapped, irritated. "We're not keeping it."

Tokio chose that moment to let out a contented little sigh and say, more to herself than to any one of them (she'd thus far blatantly ignored the conversation, much to his annoyance),

"I always wanted a pet." She snuggled the puppy close and sighed again. "Papa never let us keep pets, though—oh Soujiro-kun, thank you so much, he's adorable!"

Saitou immediately faced a dilemma: he could be an asshole like her father and make her give the puppy back, or he could give in and look like the whipped boyfriend he was beginning to suspect he was turning into. It took a second to make the decision—if it could even be called that.

"So do you have a particular name in mind, Chiisai?" he wearily asked, and Eiji and Soujiro immediately grinned at him in pleased and surprised approval.

And Saitou sourly decided that the conspiracy against him was not only still going strong, its ranks were growing by the day.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 35: Fathers and Daughters:_

"Uh, sir, maybe you don't understand," he said after a moment of staring at Saitou incredulously. "When Takagi-san's in a bad mood, people _hide_."

"And when I'm in a bad mood, people _die_," Saitou replied. "And I'm in a bad mood right now."

The guy watched him with wide eyes for a second, then pointed to the stair case:

"Security Department, Fourth floor, fifth office on the left," he said.

---

"I did what Tokio asked," he said finally. "Not that I get what the hell possesses her to do shit like this for you, _old man_."

"You weren't brought into this world to 'get' anything, _punk_, much less my relationship with my daughter," Kojuro coldly replied.

---

When he remained stubbornly silent, she sighed and grumbled,

"Fine, don't tell me."

"Thank you," he said.

"Nuts, I was hoping you'd change your mind and tell me," she muttered, and he grinned faintly.

---

The door opened to reveal Takagi Kojuro, hat in hand, looking stiff and nervous.

Surprised didn't even begin to cover what Tokio felt upon seeing her father.


	35. Fathers & Daughters

"**Fathers, be good to your daughters; daughters will love like you do…."** For some reason, the John Mayer song "Daughters" was playing on loop in my head when I started this chapter. So I went online, found the song and listened to it while I finished the chapter and then edited it, and decided my head was a really weird place, because it was an oddly appropriate ear-worm. For once. o.O

And y'all can thank "Daughters" for the title of this chapter; it (the title, I mean, not the chapter) was sort of inspired by the first two lines of the chorus.

Also, my semester is nearing its end, _thank God_. And once it does, I have about a week's respite before I go for a six-week summer semester (or as I affectionately call it, "Little Death") that may or may not kill me (classes get _way_ more intense when you condense four months' worth of work to a month and a half, I tell you what…). I'll try to get one more chapter out before the summer semester starts, but no promises.

**This chapter is dedicated to twstdmind, who had a birthday March 31.** I was hoping I'd have this done by then, but alas, Life sat back and said, "Non," and that was that. Also, today is Tokio's birthday! How geeky am I that that gets me all happy and excited?

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

an-dango: dango is a type of Japanese dumpling made from rice flour; sticky and filling, it's often served with green tea. "An" is sweetened red bean paste usually, though other varieties are available. So an-dango is a dumpling with sweetened red bean paste in the middle. It's the most popular flavor of dango in Japan.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo: these are 23 municipalities that make up what was the city of Tokyo before it was abolished in 1943. Together, they make up the core and most populous part of Tokyo. Formally known as "the special wards" (_tokubetsuku_), they are more commonly known as the "twenty-three wards." They are special in that they exercise a considerable degree of autonomy that makes them seem more like small cities than districts, and all of them elect their own mayors; however, they still manage to function together as one urban entity. Within Japan, this is a highly unusual set up.

Tama Area: Western Tokyo, made up of 26 cities, 3 towns and one village. They were not part of the original city of Tokyo.

Hachiko: sometimes known as "faithful dog Hachiko," he was an Akita-ken from Akita Prefecture, famous in Japan for his loyalty to his master, Professor Ueno. He saw his master off every morning and then waited at Shibuya Station for him at the end of the day, and continued to do so after his master's death in 1925, up until Hachiko's own death in 1935. A bronze statue of Hachiko stands at Shibuya Station, and he was present at its unveiling in 1934. The original was scrapped for the war effort during WWII, but another was erected in 1948, crafted by the son of the fellow who'd done the original one. It is still there and is a popular meeting spot. As for Hachiko himself, he was stuffed and mounted and resides in the National Science Museum in Ueno, Tokyo.

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_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Thirty-Five: Fathers and Daughters**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Oi, where's Takagi Kojuro at?" Saitou asked upon arriving at the Nerima Ward precinct later that day.

The young man he'd questioned immediately sent him a horrified look, and Saitou raised an eyebrow—now why wasn't that reaction a surprise?

"Trust me, sir, you don't want to see Takagi-san today," the guy assured Saitou. "He's on the war path 'cause he didn't get his usual Valentine's Day gift from his daughter."

…Wait…what?

Apparently, Saitou's confusion showed on his face (or maybe the guy was just a gossip—wouldn't have been the first), because the guy looked around as if checking to make sure Kojuro wouldn't pop out from behind a column or desk or plant, then leaned closer and said, voice low,

"See, every year on Valentine's Day, Takagi-san's daughter, Tokioko-san, gives her father a little gift. And I mean every year—she never misses, Tokioko-san. But she didn't come by yesterday, and apparently, there wasn't anything this morning either, and the old man's been in a rotten mood ever since."

"That right?" Saitou drawled, and the guy nodded.

"So really, it'd be better if you came back later—"

"Where's he at?"

The guy blinked.

"Uh, sir, maybe you don't understand," he said after a moment of staring at Saitou incredulously. "When Takagi-san's in a bad mood, people hide."

"And when I'm in a bad mood, people die," Saitou replied. "And I'm in a bad mood right now."

The guy watched him with wide eyes for a second, then pointed to the stair case:

"Security Department, fourth floor, fifth office on the left," he said.

Saitou inclined his head and ambled over to the stair case, raising one hand in a lazy gesture of thanks.

The young man watched him go and shook his head slowly, blinking.

"Scary," he muttered.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Yesterday hadn't been good, and today wasn't looking much better, either.

Takagi Kojuro wouldn't have described himself as a particularly sentimental man. He was ruthlessly pragmatic in his thinking, and always had been—it was why, the day his parents had not so subtly informed him that they very much approved of Katsuko (who had been the only child of another family of once important and powerful samurai ancestors), he had dutifully told the matchmaker that he was willing to marry the young woman he'd been introduced to a mere month ago. The Takagis were no longer retainers to the Aizu royal family; in 1970, they'd barely been middle class, and the odds of ever moving up in socioeconomic class had been low. Which was why when the added stipulation that he and his wife-to-be live in Tokyo came from his future in-laws, he accepted the move without comment—there was opportunity in Tokyo that he wouldn't ever be able to find in Aizuwakamatsu. So he promptly traveled from his ancestral home to the capital, found a dangerous but well-paying job in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and a home in the suburbs that would neither cost him much nor offend his future in-laws.

Objecting had never occurred to him. Then again, the circumstances of the day were different.

His children had heard the story of their parents' marriage many times, and Kojuro had never thought to gloss it over and make it sound less…well, cold, than it no doubt did…mostly because the idea that it _was_ cold had never occurred to him either. It had never seemed that way to him—he hadn't married his wife for love, he'd married her because his family had expected him to, and as the oldest son he was in no position to argue against several hundred years of tradition. Love hadn't figured in the equation, and really, it was not so very different with other couples from his generation—they were part of a small percentage, granted, but they hadn't been the only ones. And Kojuro had to say that he had never once regretted it; Katsuko had turned out to be quite capable as a wife and mother, and she had tolerated him and his difficult humor for thirty-seven years. Kojuro knew he wasn't an especially easy person to get along with, but Katsuko had not only managed it, she had perfected it. The only person who was better was Tokioko (and after thirty-seven years, Kojuro could say that yes, he did love his wife very much).

But Katsuko, for all her even temper and capabilities, had never been his confidant; the way he'd grown up, that was a privilege held by a man's eldest son. He'd waited patiently for his turn to come, for his son to come…and instead, he'd been given a daughter. "Disappointment" wasn't the right word to describe what he'd felt when the nurse had told him his wife had delivered a baby girl, but no other word came close. Sada's birth a little under a year later had similarly been demoralizing, and the next year Katsuko had miscarried and they'd been informed that her chances of having more children were zero.

For the first time in his life, Kojuro had defied convention; denied the boy he'd been longing for, he decided that little Tokioko, though a girl, would become his favored child the way he had been his father's, and even when Katsuko had become unexpectedly pregnant and delivered Morinusuke, it hadn't changed a damn thing for Kojuro.

His relationship with Tokioko had always been very important to him—when everything else in his life was bleak, she was the one thing that was always good and always sweet. And after the disastrous turn his relationship with Sada had taken, his relationship with Tokioko had become even more important to him, because he could at least look to her for proof that he wasn't a failure as a father (Morinusuke was tricky; he hadn't exactly let Kojuro down—the boy was doing very well in traffic, and Kojuro kept close tabs on him to assure himself of the boy's continued safety without his son's knowledge—but Kojuro had always hoped his son would be _more_ than a public servant, just as he'd broken out of his father's mold and become _more_ than a farmer). Which was part of the reason why the current state of their relationship was particularly agonizing for him.

He'd always been more worried about his daughters' futures than his son's, because the sad truth was that as bright as his girls were—and Tokioko and her sister were quite intelligent—it wasn't going to guarantee them anything. Kojuro had told Tokioko, more than once, that for her sake, he was sorry she'd been born a woman, because doors that were closed to her as a woman would have been wide open for her as a man, and it was only luck that she'd gotten the position she had at the museum. If not because Akira was family, she likely would have been stuck in a dead-end secretarial position, her talent wasted.

He'd never been prouder of her, the day she'd told him and Katsuko about Akira's offer; his little girl was going to be the Associate Director of a small but prestigious museum in Bunkyo Ward. As such, she would never lack for anything economically, the way he and Katsuko had in the first few years of their marriage.

Which led to the next big milestone—marriage. Specifically, marriage to a man of equal or higher economic status, so that they wouldn't have to delay starting a family for eight years the way Kojuro and Katsuko had had to.

And Saitou Hajime did not meet that requirement by any stretch of the imagination.

Even before knowing the man's name, Kojuro had decided he was unacceptable after hearing he was a police officer. In fact, he'd been appalled to hear that, the way he'd been appalled the day his son had announced his intention to join the Nerima Ward precinct. Kojuro didn't make a bad living as a police officer—they weren't living hand-to-mouth. Nor was he ashamed of being a police officer—it was very dignified and noble work. But it wasn't white-collar work, and that was the problem; Kojuro wanted his children to go farther than he had, not stay within the same boundaries.

It was why he'd once again held off on moving his household to another, more affluent neighborhood and instead used that carefully hoarded money to pay for his daughter's post-secondary education, and why he'd told Tokioko to get a degree in business. He'd hoped that she'd eventually marry a well-off businessman, and his little girl would never have to worry about rationing money and food the way her parents had (Tokyo had never been cheap, and by the looks of things that wasn't going to change any time soon). And if, later on down the line for whatever reason, she had ended up getting divorced, she at least had a degree to fall back on.

And once he'd found out who this police officer his daughter was involved with was, he'd _known_ the man was no one for his daughter to _share a bus_ with, never mind _marry_.

Saitou Hajime had a stellar record as an excellent officer with the MPD that was well-known and respected. He also had another, less stellar record that was equally well-known—his drinking and brawling.

The lanky assistant inspector consistently got into more bar fights than any other police officer in the entirety of the department (which was nothing short of incredible when one considered that the MPD included the 23 special wards, the Tama Area and the Izu and Ogasawara Islands), and it was rumored that he purposely started 99 percent of them. He was known by sight and name in _every single bar_ in Kabuki-cho.

All of which meant he was an unacceptable marriage candidate for his little girl.

Saitou had more than lived up to Kojuro's expectations the night of the dinner: the man was insolent and rude, and he'd _raised his voice to Tokioko_ (the only reason Kojuro hadn't punched his face in in the entry was because Tokioko was standing there next to him, and he wouldn't have put it past the delinquent to use her as a shield).

Kojuro had _never_ raised his voice to his daughter, or to any of his children, really, in his entire life—like _hell_ he'd let some _thug punk_ do it.

But damn and hell if Tokioko wasn't stuck on the punk, for reasons that mystified her father to no end. He knew she was a smart girl, and he'd raised her up to use her brain (because if there was one thing he couldn't stand it was stupid people), but his daughter's apparent infatuation with that punk defied all logical explanation.

And that, according to his wife, was the problem; Kojuro looked at things logically, and you couldn't look at love that way because there was nothing remotely logical about it.

"Just look at me," she'd dryly added with a speaking look in his direction.

These days, she wasn't too happy with him, and Kojuro couldn't find it in him to blame her—he wasn't too happy with himself either.

He was mortified by the fight he'd gotten into with Tokioko that had led to her leaving home, and even more mortified by the fight they'd gotten into the next day in front of the punk's building. They'd had their disagreements in the past, yes, but they paled in comparison to their current one. And it stung that his wife had accused him of driving Tokioko away, because there was a part of him that agreed with her.

Kojuro didn't like fighting with his daughter, didn't like feeling disappointed in her—but he also didn't want her to end up in the same boat her parents had been in for the first decade of their marriage, and he knew her life would not be easy if she persisted in staying with one Saitou Hajime.

Mostly though, the thing that ate at him and haunted him and made him feel sick were the horrible things he'd said to his favorite child, the names he'd called her. He was ashamed to have let his temper get so out of control that he'd turn on the one thing in his life that had never ever failed to make him happy and proud. But seeing her in that punk's apartment, knowing that that son of a bitch had…he'd known eventually his little girl would have to grow up…but the knowledge that that _delinquent_ had _touched_ his little girl…what father wouldn't have gotten upset, honestly?

He'd been too ashamed to talk to her the day she'd called the house three weeks later. He'd been brooding the whole time, wondering what to do, and becoming more and more frantic when he kept drawing a blank as the days went by. Obviously, he had to apologize…but how did he apologize for saying such terrible things about his own daughter?

Hearing her voice after three weeks had thrown him into a panic, and he'd passed the phone off to Katsuko like a coward, afraid to talk to his own daughter, who'd long been his favorite companion. And when Katsuko had hung up with Tokioko, she'd rounded on him and demanded to know what he'd said to make Tokioko cry, because the girl had been crying despite her insistence that she wasn't. Kojuro had only felt worse, wondering if that had been his fault too, but too afraid to call Tokioko back to find out. Things had been tense at home since then.

And then Valentine's Day had come, and though Kojuro hadn't really believed Tokioko would get him anything, what with the way things were between them, it had still been absolutely disheartening when nothing had come; somewhere deep down inside, he'd hoped that maybe….

Kojuro sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. His desk was not the best place to be thinking about this, he thought ruefully as he eyed Tokioko's college graduation picture, displayed with fatherly pride for everyone who walked by to see.

"Oi," a voice came, interrupting his brooding, and he looked up wearily, then stiffened when he saw that thug punk standing in the doorway of his office, hands in his pockets, glaring insolently at him.

"_You_," Kojuro said, voice low, temper rising. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

"Tokio wanted me to drop this off for you," he said, strolling into the office and towards Kojuro's desk. He produced a little wrapped box topped with a bow, and Kojuro blinked, surprised by its appearance.

The punk set the wrapped box on Kojuro's desk, then slid his hands in his pockets, standing before the desk. Kojuro ignored him for the moment, thrown off. He'd sadly resigned himself to having lost that closeness with his daughter that he'd enjoyed for all of her life, quite sure that his behavior at the punk's apartment had taken care of that. But if that were true, she wouldn't have bothered continuing in their Valentine's Day tradition…right?

Kojuro finally looked up at the punk, this thug that had defiled his little girl—Kojuro didn't think he'd ever be able to forgive the man that.

Gods, his father had been right when he'd said daughters turned their fathers' hair white.

"Do you need something?" he coolly asked, raising an eyebrow.

The punk eyed him with distaste.

"I did what Tokio asked," he said finally. "Not that I get what the hell possesses her to do shit like this for you, _old man_."

"You weren't brought into this world to 'get' anything, _punk_, much less my relationship with my daughter," Kojuro coldly replied. "Now. If that's all, you're free to go."

The punk's gaze narrowed, but he didn't say anything else, which honestly surprised Kojuro—he'd been expecting the punk to start a fight, but maybe he was smarter than he looked, because instead (after they had glared at each other for a tense, lengthy silence in such a way as to have killed each other if it had been physically possible), he whirled around on his heel and stalked out of the office, and Kojuro watched him go, then looked back down at the little box of chocolates that he had honestly given up on ever getting, and smiled faintly, feeling a little foolish for the strange urge to cry rising in him.

The smile and the urge disappeared the instant one of his subordinates strolled into the office, arms loaded down with files—he had a reputation as a demon to protect, after all.

The man, a decade younger than Kojuro, bobbed his head and murmured a greeting to his superior that Kojuro acknowledged with a nod, then put the files down on his own desk with a grateful sigh.

"This is so not funny," he muttered, glaring at the files distastefully, then caught sight of the little box and paused. He slowly smiled and looked up at Kojuro. "Tokioko-san's gift came through after all, huh sir?"

"Indeed," Kojuro said dryly, but his glance at the box gave away just how much he appreciated it.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

That evening found Saitou, Tokio, Eiji and the puppy in Saitou and Tokio's room.

The boy was once again on Tokio's laptop, happily wandering around the Internet. He was perched at the foot of the bed, laptop on the mattress in front of him. Tokio was lying back against her pillow, scratching her new pet behind the ears, and the puppy, to judge by his closed eyes and relaxed body, was enjoying the attention. Then again, Saitou supposed as his gaze flicked over them, he figured he'd be pretty happy too, if his head was pillowed on Tokio's chest and she was scratching him.

Saitou himself was lying next to her and (mostly) watching Eiji like a hawk while pretending to go over the boy's homework—not that he didn't trust the kid, and Tokio had assured him of the reliability of her laptop's firewall and security programs, but he was suspicious.

As Tokio liked to say, "Once a paranoid psychopath, always a paranoid psychopath."

"Eiji?" Tokio asked.

"Uh?" the boy grunted. Saitou nudged him in the small of the back very hard with his foot. "Ow!"

"Hajime," Tokio said, frowning at him.

"A grunt isn't an answer, boy," he said, ignoring Tokio and pretending great interest in the kid's composition work. "Answer right."

"You do the same thing," Eiji pointed out sullenly, rubbing the abused spot on his back.

"'Do as I say, not as I do'," Saitou replied.

"Feh," was Eiji's assessment, but he looked over at Tokio and asked, "Yeah Tokio-oba?"

Tokio shot Saitou a disapproving look (that he also ignored), then looked over at Eiji and smiled.

"Have you decided on a name yet?" she asked.

Saitou let the papers he was holding flop forward so the boy came fully into view, and watched with no small amount of amusement as Eiji flushed. Tokio had asked him earlier to name the dog, much to the youngster's surprise.

"But he's yours," he'd protested.

"And I want you to name him," she'd replied, smiling.

"Just name the dog, kid," Saitou had advised. "She makes me open her presents."

Which was a lie—he didn't have to open her presents when she shoved them into his hands, but it made things move along much faster if he just did what she wanted.

Reluctantly, Eiji had agreed to name the dog, and he'd asked to think about it for a while, to which Tokio had cheerfully agreed. She hadn't mentioned it all during dinner, and Saitou thought it was pretty safe to assume she'd patiently kept herself from asking when Eiji had arrived at the museum and on the walk home.

Appeared her patience had finally expired.

"I…maybe, yeah," the boy admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, flush deepening.

"What?" Tokio asked, and Saitou rolled his eyes over the excitement in her voice, but he still found himself smiling a little.

_My Chiisai, the perpetual six-year-old_, he thought dryly.

"Well, I was thinkin' maybe his name could be Hachi?" Eiji hesitantly offered, looking nervous. "'Cause I was lookin', and there's a story 'bout an Akita named Hachiko who used t' wait for his master at the train station in Shibuya all the time, an' he still did even after his master died, an' I thought it'd be a nice name, since it's sorta like Hachiko's."

Tokio cocked her head and considered it while Eiji watched her nervously, and Saitou rolled his eyes—like she'd honestly shoot the kid down. Not a second later, Tokio looked back over at Eiji and sent him a huge grin.

"I like it," she said.

Eiji blinked.

"You do?" he asked.

"Uh-huh," was the cheery reply, and Tokio picked the puppy up and snuggled him close. "Hachi it is." She looked up at the boy. "Wanna come with me Saturday to get him a leash and collar and puppy stuff?"

Eiji grinned.

"Yeah," he said, nodding.

The puppy didn't look nearly as excited with his new name—he looked more disgruntled that the scratching had stopped and he'd been moved. He yawned and took in his surroundings lazily before deciding they were nothing special. Saitou decided he and the dog were on the same wavelength, which he supposed was a good thing: it went without saying that _he'd_ be the one housebreaking the puppy and taking him out for 3 a.m. walks.

Eiji and Tokio played with Hachi the puppy for a while more before Saitou reminded them that Eiji had school the next day and Tokio had work, so showers were taken and homework and the laptop were put away. It had been decided that Hachi would be sleeping in Eiji's room, which neither Tokio nor the boy were adverse to, not that it would have made much of a difference to Saitou. Either the dog slept with the kid in his room, or he slept in the main room and Saitou bought a pen or something to make sure the animal didn't slobber and gnaw on, or otherwise ruin, any of the furniture—but the dog was _not_ sleeping in his and Tokio's room. It was bad enough that with Eiji in the next room, their more intimate activities had been drastically toned down; the hell he'd have an audience too, even if it was a four-legged voyeur.

He still wasn't entirely happy with Hachi's presence, though. It wasn't that he didn't like animals so much as they tended to be as messy, if not messier, than children. Especially small animals that hadn't been properly housebroken yet. And if Eiji's books and shoes and crap being littered around what had once been his living room made him twitch, an untrained Akita puppy was going to make him _lose his mind_.

Especially since he had carpet in his apartment.

Tokio noticed his resigned expression and draped herself over his shoulders.

"What's with the face?" she asked.

"Nothing," he muttered, frowning—if he told her what he was thinking he was pretty sure he'd get teased, and he really wasn't in the mood for it tonight.

"Is not," she countered, nipping his ear. "What's a matter?"

When he remained stubbornly silent, she sighed and grumbled,

"Fine, don't tell me."

"Thank you," he said.

"Nuts, I was hoping you'd change your mind and tell me," she muttered, and he grinned faintly.

"I told you that reverse psychology crap doesn't work on me."

"Uh-huh, whatever," she replied, and his grin widened a little more.

"What's on your mind Chiisai?" he asked, threading his fingers with hers. Her fingers promptly curled and very neatly trapped his hand, though if he'd really wanted to he could have broken the contact.

"Well," she began, and he felt her toss her head to one side the way she did sometimes when she forgot to be all bad ass and got girly. "I was thinkin', that I never really said thank you for letting me keep Hachi."

He raised an eyebrow and looked over his shoulder at her, to find her watching him with a mischievous grin on her face, and he grinned back—that smile was always a good thing.

"Yeah?" he asked, squeezing the hand he held.

"Yup," she said with a nod.

"So what'd ya have in mind?" he inquired, grinning wickedly.

Her response was to waggle her eyebrows the same way Okita did, only she made it cute instead of obnoxious.

"Oh, I like where this is going," he said, and she laughed and leaned forward and kissed him.

"Pants—lose 'em," she ordered.

"Absolutely Chiisai," he replied, grinning, and rose to do her bidding. "But turnabout is fair play, so lose the—"

"Ta-da," she mischievously replied, whipping her sleep shirt off and tossing it at him.

His eyes narrowed and his grin turned predatory.

"Ta-da _indeed_, my pet," he said before he tackled her.

Much, much later, he rubbed a hand up her back, yawned and murmured,

"I've decided you can have as many dogs as you want as long as I get thanked like that every time."

She giggled and kissed his chest.

"One is enough, Pervert," she assured. "But if you like, I can thank you again tomorrow night."

"Yeah, that'll work," he decided after thinking it over for a moment—he was sated and sleepy and thinking was really hard to do right just now.

She smiled and snuggled closer, eyes already closed.

"Go to sleep," she murmured.

He grunted and left her side for a second to kill the lights, then crawled back into bed and hauled her close, tossing the sheets over both of them.

"'Night," she said sleepily, kissing his chest again.

"'Night," he replied, kissing her hair.

She started snoring softly not ten minutes later, and he grinned, highly amused.

_I can't wait to give her crap about that tomorrow morning_, he thought before drifting off.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It had been a rocky start to a trying day.

Eiji had, at breakfast, asked his guardians about the "weird noises" he'd heard last night, making Tokio fumble the teapot and Saitou cough. Neither adult dared look at the other, and Tokio was mortified—she'd had a suspicion they'd been too loud last night (or rather, _he'd_ been too loud—Saitou was the more vocal of the two), but she really hadn't been given the opportunity to process that suspicion.

Luckily, aside from the cough, Saitou was quite calm about the whole thing:

"It was probably the neighbor's TV you heard," he said, going back to his breakfast as if he weren't lying through his teeth.

Eiji looked dubious, at best.

"You sure?" he asked, wrinkling his nose and eyeing Saitou suspiciously.

"Yes—eat your breakfast."

"_Really_ sure?"

"Yes—eat."

"_Really_ _really_ su—"

"Boy, you either eat your breakfast or I _help_ you," Saitou warned, leveling Eiji one of his more ferocious looks, and Eiji, though not quite cowed by it, nevertheless dropped the subject and ate his food.

Later, while the boy was in the bath room, Tokio whirled on Saitou:

"You're _so loud_!" she hissed, cheeks pink.

"You weren't complaining last night," he pointed out, though he had the grace to look a smidge uncomfortable.

"Oh like I could!" She huffed in annoyance and muttered under her breath while she picked up the breakfast dishes. "You're the one who—"

"Would you—_shut up_?!" he hissed, leaning back to look at the bath room and make sure Eiji was still blissfully unawares. "Look, fine, I'm sorry I was so fucking loud, but it's not like I can control that."

"You can too!" she snapped.

"Not when you do that thing with your—!" he snapped back, and she whacked him—_hard_—before he could finish. "_Ow_! Fuck, Tokio, that hurt!"

"_He'll hear you_!" she said in a furious whisper.

"He _already_ heard me," Saitou muttered back, rubbing his arm and sending her a dark look.

Her face went scarlet and she exploded,

"Go get dressed already, damn it!"

He left her to pick up the rest of the meal, grumbling under his breath and rubbing his arm and looking decidedly displeased.

Hachi having a slight accident didn't help his mood any, either.

And when she went back into the bedroom to get dressed, he was none too happy, going through the closet muttering to himself too low for her to hear.

It was one thing Tokio didn't like to do, leave upset with him (especially if he was going to work the night shift, like he was today), so when he sat down on the bed to put on his socks she crawled over and wrapped her arms around him from behind and nuzzled and kissed his neck until he loosened up a little, and then she apologized for yelling at him, which improved his humor only slightly—he didn't completely regain his good mood until she reluctantly admitted that it had been her fault he'd been so loud.

Then, he got up, locked the bedroom door and proceeded to show her his appreciation for her admittance, and when Eiji knocked at the door and asked—voice curious—what they were doing, Saitou told him to go watch the TV or play his PS2, volume as loud as he wanted, for about…twenty minutes. The boy seemed to ponder that, then said whatever and did as he was told, and twenty minutes later a flustered but goofily grinning Tokio and a smug Saitou emerged from the room, dressed and ready to go about their business for the day.

Tokio made Eiji gag (she had no idea if he'd been acting or really gagging) when she said good-bye to Saitou at the door, and on the fast-walk to school (they were twenty minutes—what a coincidence!—behind schedule), the boy accused her of being "schmoopy." She only laughed and said that one day, he'd completely understand that sometimes being "schmoopy" was completely justified. His response was a short-winded but still unconvinced, "Whatever Tokio-oba."

She walked into work late (a new record, thirty-eight minutes), endured Enishi's raging at her "laziness" (oh, is that what they were calling it these days?), and ever since then she'd been scrambling to catch up. Mostly, people were forgiving, as they knew she and Saitou had become the guardians of a recently orphaned boy.

So when lunch time rolled around, she called Saitou up at home and told him she'd be working through lunch. He was put out by this information, but cheered himself up by teasing her about that morning until, blushing furiously and wishing she had the time to go home and put him in his place, she haughtily choked out that she had work to do and would talk to him later…gigantic, incurable pervert that he was.

She was still behind when Eiji wandered into her office at four and threw himself down on the couch.

"How was school?" she asked, not looking away from her computer screen, glasses perched at the edge of her nose.

"It was there," Eiji replied, rotating his shoulders, which was his usual response.

Tokio grinned.

"Well, I should hope it was there, young man, or you'd have to explain to Hajime-oji and me where you were all day."

The boy grinned and hopped off the couch to bound over to her side.

"Wha'cha doin'?" he asked.

"Museum stuff," Tokio answered.

Eiji inspected the computer screen and said,

"What's all that mean?"

Tokio made a face and stuck her tongue out at the screen.

"I dunno, but it's _so_ boring!" she complained, rather dramatically, and earned a grin from Eiji.

"You sound like Kamatari-san," he said.

Tokio sent him a cheery grin.

"Well, I'm not surprised—we have known each other since second grade. He was bound to rub off on me a little."

She pushed her glasses up onto the top of her head and moved her chair back from the desk to make room for Eiji to hop up and sit on top of her desk the way he liked to do, then scooted back over so they could talk comfortably; she'd decided it was time for a break, which wasn't unusual when the boy arrived in the afternoons.

"So really, though," she said, sitting back in her chair, "how was school today?"

Eiji shrugged, scratching the tip of his nose.

"It was okay, I guess. Language ain't so bad anymore since Hajime-oji's been helpin' me with my drills an' stuff."

Tokio sent him a pleased smile that had him blushing ever so slightly.

"That's great news," she said enthusiastically.

"Not really," Eiji was quick to assure. "I don't get teased so much anymore. Some of the kids even think my accent's kinda cool."

"Girls or boys?" Tokio teased, and the flush on Eiji's face deepened.

"You're as bad as Hajime-oji," he grumbled, arms crossed over his chest and doing a pretty decent Saitou imitation.

Tokio only laughed, both because of what he'd said and his dead-on on mimic of Saitou.

Sae popped her head into Tokio's office just then.

"Tokio-san?" she said. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's a gentleman here to see—"

"Go ahead and send him in," Tokio said with a sigh, and Sae nodded and disappeared.

Tokio made a face.

"Boo," she muttered. "I thought I was done seeing people today." She moved back, sighing again, so Eiji could hop down off her desk. "Oh well. I think once I'm done with this guy, we'll leave for home, okay?"

Eiji brightened.

"We don't have to stay late today?" he asked.

"Uh-uh," Tokio replied, shaking her head and sending him a wide grin.

"Cool," Eiji said, grinning back. "Are we gonna eat at home or go somewhere?"

"Haven't decided yet," Tokio returned. "Maybe we'll consult the yen."

"Consulting the yen" was something she and Saitou had come up with to settle disputes not very long after they'd met each other. They would find a third party to flip the yen once, and the result of that one flip was the final word on the subject under discussion. Eiji had learned of that little custom of theirs when Tokio had asked him to flip the yen one night. She promised to explain it to him once he flipped the coin, so he had, and Saitou had won that time, much to Tokio's disappointment. At the end of the explanation, Eiji had eyed his guardians and announced,

"Adults're weird."

Still, though, he'd thought it was pretty cool, and he'd consulted the yen himself a few times already. It wasn't just any old yen, either; it was one that had been minted several decades ago, and Tokio carried it around in the billfold of her wallet as a good luck charm. The friends he'd made at school, Eiji had informed her, thought it was cool that his guardians settled disputes by flipping a fifty-odd-year-old coin, news which amused her.

"Is Sae-san gonna flip it for us?" Eiji asked.

Tokio shrugged.

"Maybe. Or Enishi, if he's still lurking around here somewhere."

Eiji nodded his approval and Tokio grinned at him.

A knock sounded at the door, and Eiji dutifully retreated to the couch to sit patiently until Tokio's visitor was gone. She sent him a wink and cheerfully called,

"Come in."

The door opened to reveal Takagi Kojuro, hat in hand, looking stiff and nervous.

Surprised didn't even begin to cover what Tokio felt upon seeing her father.

She gaped at him for several moments in silence, and he stared back, solemn and fidgeting ever so slightly, which only shocked her worse—her father had never fidgeted a day in his life. It just didn't happen, period, end of story. He coughed and cleared his throat nervously (if Tokio hadn't been sitting down she'd have fallen over in shock upon realizing _her_ father was _nervous_) and quietly said,

"Good afternoon Tokioko." He paused, meeting her gaze for a moment before shifting it away to focus on the wall behind her. "May I come in?"

"Yes," Tokio squeaked, eyes like saucers.

Kojuro had never visited his daughter's office, mostly because he didn't feel comfortable interrupting her while she was working. His wife visited every now and again, and often chided him and told him Tokioko would enjoy getting a visit from her papa, but Kojuro had always replied that it was very rude to interrupt Tokioko while she was doing her job, and especially since she had the important position at the museum that she did. Katsuko only rolled her eyes at him and called him an old fool.

So this was his first time going to see Tokioko at work, and now he wished that he'd listened to Katsuko and come before—perhaps he wouldn't be as nervous and unsure as he was.

It might also have helped if that last the time he'd seen his daughter, he hadn't called her a whore, among other things.

He entered the office and shut the door behind him carefully, then turned and began walking forward. He saw a boy sitting on the couch out of the corner of his eye, and was a little surprised; unless he was very much mistaken (and he _wasn't_, thank you very much), that was Mishima Eiji, the little brother of the fallen Bunkyo Ward officer Mishima Eiichirou. A few of the other ward precincts had taken up a collection for Mishima's family, and Kojuro had later heard that the young man's only family was a younger brother. He'd also heard that Mishima's superior officer, Assistant Inspector Saitou Hajime, had taken custody of the boy. Kojuro had snorted—_Yeah right_, had been his assessment of that particular bit of news. The Wolf of Bunkyo Ward, scourge of Shinjuku Ward's bar crawl, had taken in an orphan? Uh-huh, and the sun was actually a giant friggin' light bulb out in the middle of the galaxy.

…okay…so maybe there _was_ a giant friggin' light bulb masquerading as the sun….

He turned his attention back to his daughter, who looked nothing more and nothing less than stunned by his appearance. He took that as a good sign; Tokioko had a very bad temper, and it was unusual for her to stay quiet for this long if she was angry. Shocked was better.

After a few moments, she shook off her stupor and shot to her feet.

"Here, Papa," she said, gesturing to one of the seats in front of her desk, "please, sit down."

Kojuro inclined his head ever so slightly and quietly took the seat she'd indicated, laying his hat on his knee. He sat straight-backed and stiff, which wasn't necessarily unusual; even at home, relaxing, he never truly "relaxed."

He saw her eyes go beyond him, and supposed she was looking at the boy. This was confirmed when she said,

"Eiji, why don't you go see if Sae has anything for you? I think she bought an-dango this afternoon."

"Sure Tokio-oba," the boy said, voice wary, and Kojuro heard the child's exit from the office, the door clicking shut and leaving him alone with his daughter.

There was a long pause after Eiji's exit. Tokioko retook her seat, and they sat across from each other, refusing to look at each other, for a considerable length of time, until Kojuro began to feel very foolish and decided this had gone on long enough. He thought of the little box of chocolates he'd received the day before, and some of his courage returned; there was some hope yet that fences could be mended, though it pained him deeply that things would never be quite the same between him and first-born child.

Kojuro cleared his throat quietly, gaze on his daughter. Her eyes met his for the first time since his arrival. She looked nervous. Looking back on his behavior, though, little wonder that she would be.

"I received your gift," he said quietly. "I wanted to thank you in person. I hope I haven't interrupted you, Tokioko."

"You haven't!" she blurted. "I was getting ready to leave anyway. You didn't interrupt me, Papa."

He nodded, gaze falling to her desk.

"I also," he began thoughtfully, "wanted to apologize for the other day. When you called the house, I mean."

"You didn't do anything Papa," she quietly assured.

"I was very cowardly," he countered. "I…I haven't been…." He sighed, rubbing his brow, closing his eyes. "I don't like this, Tokioko."

"What?" Her voice was even quieter than before, if that was possible.

"This fighting with you," he said, frowning. "I've resigned myself to the fact that your sis…that Sada and I will never see eye-to-eye. Once, I had a hope that when she became older, she might see things differently. I've since decided that there's little chance of that happening." His frown deepened. "But I've never fought this way with you, Tokioko. And fighting with you is even more deplorable than fighting with Sada, which is saying something."

Tokioko was silent. There wasn't a sound in the room save for the low, steady hum of her computer.

"Your mother says I've ruined you," he said finally, looking up at her and meeting her eye. "That I've done everything in my power to make you miserable, instead of happy, the way I believed I was. Is this true? Have I made you miserable and unhappy, Tokioko?"

She was surprised again; her large eyes were larger than usual.

"No," she whispered. "Papa, you didn't make me miserable and unhappy. You always tried to do what was best for me—I know that."

"You don't look very happy, little one," he noted. "You think your own father wouldn't notice when he's being lied to?"

"I'm not miserable," she insisted.

"You aren't happy either," he countered.

She didn't say anything, and he inclined his head in a vaguely "Ah, I thought so"-like fashion.

"Perhaps, then, your mother has a point," he said. "She does tend to be better at these things than I do."

"I'd be happier," Tokioko hesitantly began, "if you could…try not to hate Hajime so much."

Kojuro couldn't help the sneer that immediately found its way onto his face at the mention of the man; it was a reflex he still hadn't been able to quite control.

"That man," he said gravely, "is no one fit for you."

Tokioko watched him for a moment.

"Why?" she asked finally. "It's not because he's an officer—"

"It hasn't won him any points," Kojuro said, and Tokioko sent him a surprised look.

"What?" she asked, clearly baffled.

"You're not supposed to marry an officer," Kojuro replied, and Tokioko's expression grew more baffled.

"I'm not?" she asked.

"No."

She blinked.

"So who am I supposed to marry?"

"Someone with money."

Tokioko frowned.

"Papa, come on. _You're_ an officer. You can't possibly be serious."

"I'm deathly serious, and the fact that I'm an officer makes me more so."

"This is ridiculous! We were never poor growing up—you make it sound like Hajime lives in poverty because he's an officer!"

"You never lacked for anything as a child because your mother and I ensured that you didn't," Kojuro replied. "Though I think now a little deprivation might have done you some good, made you appreciate how serious money is."

"Money isn't everything," Tokioko argued, and Kojuro snorted, amused.

"Spoken like someone who's never known want in her entire life," he replied. "You and your brother always had everything you wanted because your mother and I sacrificed things we wanted for you children. Did you know that when you were eight, we could have moved to a more affluent neighborhood, but didn't because you wanted to go to school with your cousin?"

Kojuro clearly remembered that time; Katsuko had warned him he was going to spoil Tokioko rotten if he gave in and paid the tuition for her to go to school with Akira. And part of him had suspected his wife was right, but Tokioko had always been his fatal weakness, and anything she wanted, she was assured of getting if she asked her father. He'd shut that part of himself up by telling himself that her going to school with Akira would put her in contact with the upper echelon of society and benefit her in the end. And he had to admit, for the most part that had been true; it had brought her into contact with the upper class and taught her how to act. No one sneered at Takagi Tokioko's manners—she was decorous and poised in the company of her socioeconomic betters, so much so that he knew many of them would be surprised to learn she was lower middle class.

He knew he'd surprised her when her eyes widened a little.

"For our part, your mother and I never minded, so long as it gave you children the opportunity to have more than we did and you were happy. And privately, I think enrolling you in your cousin's school did far better for you than moving to a more affluent neighborhood would have done."

She was thrown off for a second, but one thing about his daughter that he'd always admired was that she always managed to find her balance fairly quickly:

"No, I didn't know that," she said finally. "But I think, Papa, that you're forgetting that I make more money than either of you. In which case money no longer becomes an issue."

Kojuro snorted again.

"You don't honestly think I'm only concerned about money?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Fine then," Tokioko said, sitting back, looking very serious and business-like, and Kojuro felt pride in her—his little girl was an important woman, no matter how you looked at it. "What else is there? Because I've been wondering about this for a long time. Always before, when you've disapproved, you've given me a reason. But I haven't heard one yet from you about him until today, Papa, and that makes me wonder what's so different this time."

"You don't trust your father's judgment?"

"Always," she replied without hesitation. "But my father also taught me never to follow blindly."

He smiled ever so faintly.

"This is so," he admitted. He sighed, clasping his hands in his lap, thoughtful gaze returning to her desk. "Your father will be entirely honest with you, Tokioko, as he has always been before: I hear many things about many officers within the MPD. Not all of it is good. Not all officers are good. There's corruption there, the way there is anywhere else."

"Hajime isn't a corrupt man," Tokioko interrupted heatedly.

Kojuro sent her a heavily disapproving look, and she watched for a moment before she bowed her head, expression changing from mutinous and outraged to embarrassed and contrite.

"I'm sorry Papa. It was rude of me to interrupt you," she murmured.

"Hn," was his reply.

He waited several moments more before continuing:

"Some men are worse than others. Assistant Inspector Saitou Hajime is not among these—but neither is he among those I'd consider better. He's not in between them, either, which would have won him some points with me. The easiest way of explaining it is that he's a hair's breadth left of what I'd consider proper, which is far too much. Do you understand, Tokioko?"

She nodded, and he nodded once as well.

"He's bad tempered," Kojuro said. "He has a reputation within the MPD for drinking too much and starting brawls, specifically in the less respectable areas of Kabuki-cho. As an officer, he's been cited several times for misconduct, though never anything terrible enough to warrant discharge or legal action—that I know of, anyway. There're rumors making the rounds that an attorney named Matsumoto Shinsuke is out for his blood and might finally get some, but I personally doubt it. Saitou's chief, Hijikata Toshizou-san, has a knack for getting his star assistant inspector out of trouble."

Kojuro eyed his daughter.

"None of this, of course, in any way impresses me. I don't doubt he's a capable officer—his record says that. His manner of operation and general character, however, leave _much_ to be desired."

"He's not a bad man," Tokioko said quietly.

"Just one with poor character, and that's just as bad," Kojuro replied.

"He's not like that, Papa," Tokioko insisted.

Kojuro raised an eyebrow, and Tokioko was quick to qualify: "I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that you haven't got everything. He…yes, he does have a bad temper. I'll agree with that."

"I'd be surprised if you didn't, after the way he yelled at you the night he came to the house," Kojuro muttered sourly, and Tokioko smiled ever so faintly, in fond exasperation, at him.

"Sometimes I make him crazy," she explained.

"No excuse for him to yell at you," he replied.

"You yelled at me," she pointed out.

"And I'm deeply ashamed of that and wish I could take it back," he firmly replied. "I've never raised my voice to my children—I don't want to start now."

"Papa," she said warmly, her smile wider now. "I have a bad temper too. He lets me yell right back at him."

"You two shouldn't be yelling at each other anyway," Kojuro said, frowning. "I've never yelled at your mother in thirty-seven years, not even when I probably should have."

"Well, that's you and Mama," Tokioko said sensibly. "Hajime and I aren't the same."

"I still don't like it."

She smiled at him again.

"I know." She sighed, and her smile faded. "About the rest…I know he takes his job seriously, and he's very proud of the fact that he's an officer in the MPD, and when he was working on the museum break-in, he was always professional—"

"Dating the case is not the mark of professionalism, Tokioko," Kojuro intoned, and Tokioko's mouth snapped shut in obvious shock.

"I…wha…bu…how'd you know about that?!" she sputtered, so completely thrown off that she didn't even bother to deny that he was right.

"As I said, I hear things," Kojuro said, frowning again; she'd lied to them about how long she'd been seeing Saitou, and while he didn't like that, he decided not to bring it up just yet—there were other things to discuss first. "And one of those things I heard was that he was spending an awful lot of time with the Acting Director that had nothing to do with the museum break-in."

"We've known each other for a very long time now, though Papa, remember?" Tokioko hesitantly reminded him. "We met at a luncheonette near the museum—"

"That's not better and it doesn't excuse it, Tokioko," Kojuro interrupted. "He flagrantly disobeyed the rules concerning decorum. The moment he found out you were involved, he should have handed it over to someone less personally invested in it. Things go bad when you're too close to the case."

"Nothing bad happened," Tokioko protested weakly.

Kojuro raised an eyebrow.

"Really?" he asked dryly, and she flushed a little.

"He caught Wu in the end," she pointed out, a little defensively.

"Yes—after that madman snuck into the museum and took _my daughter_ hostage," Kojuro said, voice harder now.

"That could have happened even if Hajime wasn't in charge," Tokioko said.

"Or it might never have happened if he hadn't been distracted with romancing the Acting Director," Kojuro shot right back. "I'm not debating what-ifs, Tokioko, I'm telling you facts. And the facts are that his behavior was unprofessional in the extreme. The only reason he hasn't been brought up for charges is because he's got Hijikata watching his back for him. The fact that he caught the bastard helps too, but not enough that people would be willing to overlook it, if he were anyone else and didn't have Hijikata pulling strings for him."

"He's a good officer!" Tokioko protested.

"He's efficient enough," Kojuro said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"People make mistakes, Papa," she argued. "You can't honestly tell me you'd hold that against him?!"

"He put my daughter in danger," Kojuro said, eyes flashing, "when it was his duty to make sure nothing happened to her—_the hell_ I can't hold that against him."

"He did everything he could," Tokioko returned, frustrated.

"If he'd done everything he could, Wu Heishin would never have set foot in the museum," Kojuro said. "If he'd done everything he could, you would never have spent an hour and a half locked in the storage rooms with a lunatic with a gun."

"He got there in time."

"He could just as easily have been late," Kojuro said. "There was no earthly reason for him to be all the way on the other side of Tokyo, doing something one of his subordinates could have done."

"He's a control freak," Tokioko offered as an explanation.

"Then he needs to learn to delegate before he gets the next Acting Director shot and killed," her father replied tersely.

"Will he be dating that one too?" Tokioko asked sarcastically.

"I wouldn't put it past him," Kojuro replied without missing a beat.

Tokioko sighed and sat back in her chair, looking tired and very frustrated.

"This is stupid," she decided. "We're arguing about something that already happened."

"It has a great deal of bearing on the state of things," Kojuro said.

"So he screws up, a little bit, one time," Tokioko said, exasperated. "That doesn't mean it happens all the time, Papa."

"Regardless, it's troubling," Kojuro replied. "It shows an appalling lack of professionalism. And then, of course, there's you. That's an entirely separate issue, and it doesn't inspire confidence in him either."

"That's not fair," Tokioko argued. "You can say all this now, because it's over. Hindsight is 20/20, Papa."

"Hindsight has nothing to do with it," Kojuro said patiently. "He's notorious for not following protocol, and that was no different. He was supposed to be at the museum, not sitting in a car outside of Wu's house. Statistically, the odds of Wu's returning to the house were considerably lower than the odds of his returning to the museum. You set the trap at the spot with the highest probability of success, not the lowest."

Tokioko didn't appear to have anything to say to that. She stared down at her desk, frowning, but Kojuro could see from the look on her face that as much as she wanted to disagree, she knew he had a point.

"He cares about me," she said finally.

"Yes, by yelling at you and almost getting you shot. Got a hell of a way of showing it."

Tokioko sent him a flat look.

"That's not fair."

"I can't help how the man presents himself," he replied. "All I know is what I've seen and what I've heard. You know your father, Tokioko."

"Yes I do—and my father's never not given anyone a second chance to redeem themselves."

"His second chance was dinner at the house."

"You picked a fight with him," she pointed out.

"Absolutely—and he did exactly what I thought he would."

"Papa!" Tokioko exploded, incredulous. "You deliberately manipulated him into responding the way you wanted him to!"

"If the punk had any control, he wouldn't have responded the way he did," Kojuro blandly replied.

"You probably went through his records, looking for something to bait him with," Tokioko murmured, eyeing him with disapproval.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Kojuro said, without an ounce of remorse. "And then I questioned him to see if he'd lie or omit anything."

Tokioko shook her head.

"That is so against the rules," she said with a sigh.

"I'm an Inspector," Kojuro replied. "There are certain allowances that come with the position."

"Like accessing files on the man your daughter's seeing?" Tokioko dryly asked.

"Or accessing files on the man who caught Wu Heishin," Kojuro returned, voice bland, one eyebrow raised in faint challenge.

Tokioko frowned.

"No wonder no one at the precinct ever tries to argue with you—you spin everything."

"It comes in handy," Kojuro agreed.

Tokioko sighed.

"Papa, he's not a bad man," she said wearily. "Fine, okay, I acknowledge that you have concerns, and they're valid. But Hajime treats me well—no more talking about the yelling," she warned when he opened his mouth to say just that. He frowned slightly, but didn't say anything, and she smiled faintly at him. "I'd really like for you two to try to get along, Papa. It's important to me."

Kojuro pursed his lips and eyed her.

Tokioko asked for very little, really—that was his fault: he'd raised her to be independent and self-sufficient. Hell, he'd had to argue her into letting him pay for her tuition so she wouldn't have to work and go to school at the same time. And he honestly wouldn't have it any other way—at the very least, he knew his little girl would never have to depend on a man unless she wanted to, and that made him very proud of her. On the other hand, because she asked for so little, when she did ask, he felt compelled to give her what she wanted, whether he wanted to or not.

And despite the hatred that burned with the passion of a thousand suns for one Saitou Hajime, he was feeling compelled to give her what she wanted.

…Stupid, hyperactive, neurotic conscience….

"I don't have to like him, right?" Kojuro asked, eyeing her.

Her lips quirked.

"No," she agreed. "You don't have to like him."

"Good," he muttered, "because then you'd be doomed to disappointment."

"But you have to try to be nice," Tokioko warned. "You can't start fights with him or anything. And you can't threaten him. And you can't—"

"Well what about him?" Kojuro asked, a little irritated. "I'm hearing a lot of things I can't do, but I haven't heard you say anything about him."

"Well he can't do any of that either, obviously." she sensibly replied.

"Feh. Whether or not he'll do it is the real test."

Tokioko sent him a dry look.

"I could say the same for you, Papa," she said, voice polite despite the insolence of her words. "Besides, I'm pretty sure he'll do it—he tries to stay in my good graces, and I try to stay in his."

Kojuro grunted absently, watching his daughter as she sat across from him, behind her elegant desk in her tasteful office.

Damned if she hadn't gone and grown up behind his back. He felt a little betrayed, looking at her. She wasn't his anymore, and he thought that was probably something else that added to the ill will he felt toward Saitou. In fact, he was positive it did.

"So you're going to try to get along with Hajime?" she asked.

"As long as I don't have to like him," Kojuro said, waiting for her amused nod before also nodding, "I'll tolerate the hooligan. But the moment he hurts you I kill him."

"He won't," Tokioko assured, and Kojuro snorted inelegantly.

"Like I said, the moment he hurts you I'll kill him."

Tokioko smiled widely at him, eyes filling, then dashed around the desk and threw her arms around him and hugged him.

"I love you, you crazy old man," she said, laughing and crying.

Kojuro smiled and felt a little teary-eyed himself. He reached up and smoothed a hand over her neatly pinned hair, careful not to disturb it.

_She used to wear pigtails_, he thought wistfully, _and sit with her chin on my arm_ _and ask me to tell her stories about Aizuwakamatsu and Toji. Foolish to think it would always be that way._

They hugged each other that way for a long time, and then Tokioko kissed his forehead the way she always did—the way she always had—and stepped back, sniffling. Her makeup was dribbling down her face but she was smiling.

"You wanna have dinner with us? Eiji and I were gonna leave to go get some food soon," she offered.

"I don't want to impose," he immediately said, and Tokioko rolled her eyes.

"Silly Papa," she chided, the way she had since she was small, when it was just the two of them. "Have dinner with us—I want you too."

He smiled ruefully and decided his wife was right—he'd created a monster.

"All right Tokioko," he agreed. "Let's have dinner."

"Okay—I'm paying," she said, bounding around the desk to fetch her purse.

"You most certainly are not," he said, frowning.

"I invited you."

"You are not paying for your father."

"Well you aren't paying for your daughter or her ward."

"I'm the man, I'll pay."

"I make more than you do."

"I'm older."

"You're not paying, Papa."

"Neither are you."

"Well Eiji certainly can't pay," she said wryly.

"Tokioko," he said, exasperated.

"We'll consult the yen," Tokioko decided, and Kojuro frowned.

"Consult the what?" he asked.

"The yen," Tokioko said. "I hope Sae's still here—a neutral third party's supposed to flip it."

"Why?"

"It's a rule," Tokioko replied, sounding as if that should have been obvious. Though why she seemed to think something like that should be obvious was quite beyond him.

"Seems like a lot of pomp and circumstance for a simple meal," he observed, and Tokioko sent him that thousand watt grin he'd thought he'd never see directed at him again.

"More fun that way," she cheerfully said.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Saitou got home that night, he found Tokio waiting for him, sitting at the table. She was wearing her robe, had her arms crossed over her chest, and her expression did not look promising.

"I didn't do it," he blurted immediately.

"What did you say to Papa?" Tokio asked, ignoring his statement.

"If he said I punched him he's lying," Saitou replied. "I didn't touch him."

Tokio rolled her eyes and stood up.

"I asked what you _said_, stupid, not what you _did_," she said, walking to where he stood in the entry. She reached over and started unbuttoning his coat. "Now what did you _say_ when you gave him the box of chocolates?"

"What did he say I said?" Saitou asked warily, watching her, and deeply puzzled—what the fuck? She didn't look happy, but she wasn't yelling or throwing anything at him, so he knew she wasn't pissed either.

"I asked first," Tokio replied, helping him out of his coat. "Now answer the question, or you're sleeping on the floor tonight—unless Eiji's willing to share the fold out couch with you, of course."

He knew she'd do it, too.

"Nothin'," he said finally. "I just told him I was only bringin' the chocolates 'cause you asked me to, not that I could begin to understand it."

"That's all?" she asked, hanging his coat up and then turning back to him to take his badge, gloves, wallet, and keys from him.

"Yeah." he said, giving them up to her. "Now what'd he say?"

"Nothing," she replied, setting his items on the key rack and turning back to him, finally looking a little like her usual self—happy to see him. "He still doesn't like you, though."

A light bulb went off in his head:

"You talked to him?" he asked.

"Uh-huh—he had dinner with us," she said.

"What the hell happened to him not wanting to talk to you?" Saitou demanded, incredulous.

"Misunderstanding," she cheerfully said. "Take off your shoes, Hajime," she added, sounding like she was talking to Eiji, which rankled a little.

"I'll take 'em off when I'm damn good and ready," he replied in childish annoyance, and the more reasonable part of his brain slapped its forehead and sighed; he ignored it. "What the hell do you mean, 'misunderstanding'?"

"Just what it means," she replied. "Take off your—"

"I said I'll take 'em off when I damn well feel like it," he snapped, and she raised an eyebrow.

"So you want to stand in the entry?" she dryly asked.

"Yes," he shot back. "I like it here—I come here all the time."

She sent him a considering look.

"Hm—you might want to think about asking Hijikata-san for some vacation time, Hajime," she suggested. "You might be working too hard."

"Don't patronize me, woman."

"I'm not patronizing you," she replied patiently. "I'm just saying it sounds like you may be a little burnt out."

"Well if you'd explain shit I wouldn't sound like a lunatic," he returned. "Now what the hell, Tokio?"

She shrugged.

"Papa came to the museum today and we talked," she said. "Then we went out to dinner, and I paid, 'cause the yen said so."

"You consulted the yen?"

"Yeah—Papa didn't want to let me pay, but you don't argue with the yen." She sent him an expectant look. "Now are you gonna take 'em off?"

"No," he growled. "You aren't leaving."

She blinked, then stared at him in owlish confusion.

"What?" she asked finally.

"You aren't leaving," he repeated.

She frowned at him for a second more before realization dawned, and she laughed at him, which he didn't really care for.

"You idiot," she said, affection coloring her voice. "You thought if I made up with Papa I'd go back home?"

"_Maybe_," he muttered, feeling stupid when she laughed again.

"Hajime," she said, taking up his hand and kissing the palm, "I might have left home because I got into a fight with my father, but that doesn't mean I'm going back the minute we make up. I like being here with you—getting into a fight with Papa gave me a convenient excuse to move in with you."

He eyed her, unconvinced, and she rolled her eyes and reached up and slipped a hand behind his neck to pull him down and kiss him.

"I want to stay here," she said, forehead against his, gaze locked on his. "Besides, I think you'd have a hard time sneaking into my bedroom every night without waking Papa up, don't you?"

"You don't know that," he replied, and she snorted, smiling.

"Stupid," she said, kissing him hard. "Whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me now. I'm not going anywhere."

He still felt incredibly moronic, but was relieved and reassured all the same. He really had thought the only reason she was living with him was because she was no longer welcome in her father's house, and he'd been equally sure that the moment they made amends (he'd been dubious about that possibility, but it was still there) she'd go back. And as much as living with her sometimes got on his nerves—because let's face it, his neurotic tendencies made it hard for him to handle someone else moving his stuff around and out of their accustomed places—he liked having her there. Sure, the sink was now cluttered with perfume and hair crap and a bunch of those creams with scary-sounding names, and the closet was stuffed to past its intended capacity, and she didn't always pick up after herself because she was absentminded and easily distracted, but he liked coming home and finding her asleep on the bed, having failed at waiting up for him yet again, and he liked waking up in the morning with her snuggled into his side, looking for warmth, and he liked it when she came home at the end of the day and changed out of her suit before they started dinner on those evenings when he didn't have to work later and she didn't have to stay after.

It felt normal, and he hadn't had that since he'd been eighteen. And as much as he scoffed at the idea of "normal," he had to admit it was far better than the instability of his tenure with the department, or his years of solitude after that.

"_Now_ are you gonna take off your shoes, crazy?" Tokio teased.

"Yeah—only 'cause I feel like it," he added, just to be contrary.

She rolled her eyes and let go of him so he could take off his shoes and set them in the rack, then stepped up into the apartment.

"You're _ridiculous_," Tokio told him, and he shot her a warning look. "You are," she said, ignoring the look.

"Am not," he muttered resentfully.

She suddenly wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, forehead against his collarbone, and he stilled, thrown off. He stood awkwardly, not sure what he was supposed to do. She didn't seem to mind, apparently content to hug him without receiving one in return, which sort of relieved him; he always felt more than a little dumb hugging her. It felt like such a fruity thing to do.

"You know I think you're great, right?" she asked, surprising him further.

"What?" he asked, looking down at the top of her head.

She shifted and looked up at him, chin against his chest.

"You know I think you're great, right?" she repeated.

He didn't understand where this was coming from, or why she felt compelled to say what she was saying. But it was…nice. Even if it did seem a tad…well, _random_, really.

"Yeah, I know," he replied, gently brushing her bangs out of her eyes—too long again.

She grinned up at him.

"Good. Because I really do."

"Yeah, well, you're pretty great too," he felt the need to say.

She sent him a surprised, pleased look.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied, ruffling her hair.

"How great?" she asked, raising an amused eyebrow.

"If you're expecting me to get all sappy and gay and shit, you're gonna be disappointed," he said.

She sent him a flat look, and he grinned at her.

"I should take back what I said," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"You won't," he said confidently, leaning over and scooping her up and settling her comfortably in his arms.

"Oh? How'd you figure?" she demanded, putting her arms around his neck.

"'Cause you're great like that," he replied with a cheeky smirk.

Pause.

"Jerk," she muttered, and he grinned and kissed her temple.

"Atta girl," he said wryly, starting for the bedroom.

"You know, I think you give me a little too much credit," she said.

"Nah," he replied, shrugging carefully so he didn't disturb her overly. "You really are great, Tokio. Seriously."

She eyed him for a moment, then sent him one of her mysterious "I'm-happy-with-you-for-something-only-I-get" smiles, and leaned over and kissed him.

"Want me to give you a back rub?" she asked, snuggling against him, head on his shoulder.

He smiled faintly.

"Like I said, Chiisai: you're a good kid. Don't ever let anyone tell you different, they're lyin'."

"Hm," she replied, sounding happy.

And he still had no idea what he'd done to merit this attention tonight, but he wasn't a stupid man and he wasn't going to question his good fortune.

Hell, if she was offering to give him a back rub, it was a hell of a lot better than mere "good fortune," and Saitou could totally live with that.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 36: Take Two_

"I'm sorry, did you completely block out what happened the last time I had dinner with your parents?"

"Would you really be surprised if the answer was yes?"

A pause.

"Okay, fine, I'll give you that one."

---

"You can't hit him, Hajime."

"What if he hits me first?"

"He won't."

"But what if he does?"

"_He won't_."

"_But what if he does_?"

"If you keep acting obnoxious _he_ won't have to," she snapped with a speaking look in his direction.

---

"Get back over here you little cheat—I want a rematch!"

Eiji snorted.

"Feh—you _must_ be tired of living."

---

"Jailbait, huh?" he mused. "You're lucky I didn't know you then—no way I would have left you alone."

"You were married," she archly reminded him.

"Hooker boots make a man do strange things," he matter-of-factly replied, and she laughed.

* * *

Not counting the Author's Note, the disclaimer, the Words To Watch Out For and the More Of A Note Than Anything, this chapter was 26 pages long in Word. This may be a new frickin' record, folks. 


	36. Take Two

_**CAPTAIN MISERABLE FINDS THE GREENER GRASS**_** IS AN ENTRY IN THE ALTERNATE REALITY ****AND**** ROMANCE/WAFF CATEGORIES OF THE RUROUNI KENSHIN READER'S CHOICE AWARDS!**

There. Now that I have your attention….

Yes, my friends, I have the best readers **EVER**. A group of you decided this story was good enough to be entered in the RKRC, and I'm humbled by the compliment. Like, A LOT, you guys. Seriously.

So before we continue with our tale, I'd like to (again) thank **Negotiatrix**, who I discovered was behind the nomination. (After whining about it on my LJ…and they say that doesn't work—ha!) I'd also like to (again) thank **older woman** for nominating my Sano-centric fic "Gray" in the one-shot category; of all the RK fics I've written, I love this one best, and it makes me so incredibly happy to find that someone thought enough of it to nominate it.

All of this means I've been spazzing out more than usual, naturally. I've also been dying to share this with those of you who hadn't already heard (see why I tell you guys you should be checking my LJ?), but since FF(dot)net frowns on non-chapter…chapters…I didn't want to post a note and then have it erased, or have them go all Inquisition on my ass. So I've been waiting since May 5th to tell you guys this.

(Also, I need to write faster and not procrastinate so damn much. Oh well.)

As of right now, I'm not sure exactly when voting will begin, just that it will be some time after July 31 (in other words, after today). Checking the Meiji Tales website—www(dot)meijitales(dot)com, and then clicking on "RKRC"—will yield much faster answers to this question than waiting for easily-distracted-by-shiny-things me would.

So I'm really excited and nervous (and sorry this took so freakin' long), and once voting starts, I'll probably sound a lot crazier (fair warning, right?).

Oh, right: I'm not quite done answering reviews, because the Internet gods didn't like me from the evening of the 26th to the evening of the 27th, or thereabouts, and that put me behind on that (as did finishing this chapter to post today). I'll try to finish that before the next chapter. And if I don't, well, I guess you guys are used to that by now.

Ah, yes, one more thing: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

None that I could find.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Age of consent: this varies between 13 and 17 in Japan, depending on the prefecture. So I decided to ignore that and go with 18, because it suits my purposes better than randomly picking an age between 13 and 17.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Thirty-Six: Take Two**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

She was living with a child.

And it _wasn't_ Eiji.

Tokio crossed her eyes, exasperated and unable to think of a better way of expressing that than by crossing her eyes and making herself look incredibly moronic. But it was either that, or do nothing, and the latter simply wasn't an option.

She'd known Saitou was going to balk at the idea of going to her parents' house for dinner, but she hadn't expected him to be so damn whiny about it. Or as whiny as he could get, anyway.

Which was surprisingly whiny, actually.

In all truth, she hadn't thought it was a good idea either, but she hadn't had the heart to tell her mother so when she'd met the older woman for lunch yesterday. She'd been surprised to find her father there as well; when her mother had called to ask for a lunch date, Tokio had been under the impression that it would just be the two of them. Still, she'd been happy to see Kojuro all the same. Now that they were speaking to each other again, and things were pretty much back to normal between them, a considerable weight had been lifted from Tokio's shoulders.

She'd been even more surprised to learn that aside from seeing her and catching up, the luncheon's purpose had been to ask her to bring Saitou to the house for dinner.

"And Eiji-kun too," Katsuko added. "Papa says he's a very thoughtful little boy."

Eiji and Kojuro had gotten along famously the night the three of them had eaten out. At first, there'd been some tension between the two that she didn't quite understand, but her father's gruff attitude, so similar to Saitou's when Eiji had first come to live with them and he'd uneasily tried to make the boy feel welcome, had won Eiji over and by the end of the night they'd been enjoying each others' company.

"He's not so bad," Eiji told her later when they were riding the elevator up after Kojuro had walked them to Saitou's building. "He's like what I thought a grandpa's supposed to be like."

Tokio had readily agreed to bring Eiji with her, but she'd been less enthusiastic about bringing Saitou. No one argued with Katsuko, though, when she had her mind set on something, and by the end of the luncheon with her parents, Tokio had agreed to be at the house, her boys in tow, six o'clock sharp two days from then.

Eiji had been intrigued by the idea, and was curious about her mother, so he was no problem, not that she'd been anticipating one. But Saitou was going to be an uphill battle all the way.

"Are you _fucking crazy_?!"

Tokio sighed wearily.

Sometimes she hated being right.

"Hajime," she said, with patience she didn't actually have, "look, I know you've got some doubts—"

"_Some_ _doubts_? Are you _serious_, woman?! He'll try to fucking _kill me_ the minute I walk through the door!"

"Oh he will not, stupid," she snapped.

"His track record says otherwise," he snapped back.

She glared at him.

"Why would he try to kill you when he asked you to come?" she demanded.

"Oh _bullshit_, that was your mother all the way," he replied with a snort.

Tokio briefly entertained the thought of strangling him with her bare hands.

"Hajime—" she began.

"Every time he sees me he tries to kick my fucking head off!"

"He didn't try to when you went to the precinct!" she exploded, stamping her foot. "Why are you being such a baby, you asshole?!"

He sent her an incredulous look.

"I'm sorry, did you completely block out what happened the last time I had dinner with your parents?"

"Would you really be surprised if the answer was yes?" she asked flatly, glaring at him, arms crossed over her chest.

A pause.

"Okay, fine, I'll give you that one." he muttered with obvious distaste. "But still—come on, Tokio, you can't be serious. This is begging for a repetition."

"No it isn't," she said.

"The hell it isn't."

Okay. This was getting them nowhere.

"All right Hajime," she said abruptly. "I didn't want to do this, but you've left me no choice—you're going to dinner at my parents', or I'm cutting you off."

He stared at her in silence for a long moment.

"You're bluffing," he said finally, expression unreadable.

"You think so?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "I went two years without having sex—I can do it again."

He eyed her, obviously weighing the pros and cons of calling her bluff, and Tokio was irritated with him for making her use it in the first place. She didn't like blackmailing someone unless she didn't really like them all that much, and despite his less desirable traits, she liked Saitou very very much. She also didn't feel like not sleeping with him—she'd very quickly gotten used to one of them initiating sex, and she didn't look forward to that ending, even for a short while. Idly, she supposed Saitou had turned her into a sex addict, because she'd never been concerned over it before.

"Tch—fine," he muttered at long last, eyeing her balefully.

"Oh stop," she said, rolling her eyes. "Geez—act like I'm asking you to quit smoking."

"Feh. Rather do that than eat dinner with your old man, it'd be easier," he shot back.

"I'll make it up to you," she assured.

"Damn right you will."

Tokio sighed, but decided not to push the issue, since she'd gotten what she'd wanted.

"You wanna eat now?" she asked instead.

"Food's here?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know, but Sae might," she replied, walking over to the door and opening it to stick her head out. "Sae? Is lunch here yet?"

"Not yet Tokio-san," Sae replied, not looking up from her monitor, fingers flying over the keyboard, "but the attorneys have arrived and Enishi-san and Tomoe-san took them into the conference room. I was just going to call you—Enishi-san just now told me."

"Okay, don't worry about it," Tokio said with a nod. "When should lunch get here?"

"Within fifteen minutes."

"All right then."

Tokio leaned back into her office and shut the door, then leaned against it, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Not yet, but it should be here in fifteen," she told him.

He grunted from where he sat before her desk. "So I heard. You gotta go to the conference room?"

"Yeah," she replied, frowning. "The lawyers have news for us."

"Good or bad?"

"They didn't say."

"Bad, then."

She smiled in exasperated amusement.

"Thanks for the input, Sunshine."

"Oi, I call it like I see it," he said with a shrug. "Anyway, with lawyers, the odds are in favor of it being bad news."

She snorted and straightened, then walked over to him and tugged on his coat lapel.

"Come on, let's go."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Let's?" he repeated. "Aren't you gonna have a meeting?"

"Yeah, but I invited you to have lunch here with me today, and you're coming too," she said, tugging his lapel again. "So let's go. Besides, you were the officer in charge of the investigation, and you were there when we found out the katana was the Shinuchi. Mifune-sensei's been wanting to talk to you about that. He's already spoken to Udou-san."

"Oh I'm sure _that_ was a productive conversation," Saitou said sarcastically, rolling his eyes, as he straightened from the chair.

Tokio elected not to say anything, and instead carefully smoothed down the lapel she'd been tugging at. Then she looked him over and nodded in satisfaction.

"You sure it's all right if I sit in on your meeting?" he asked idly, hands in his pockets.

"I'm the boss for now," she replied, leaning up on tiptoe to kiss him. "So yes, it's all right if you sit in on our meeting."

He shrugged.

"Okay Boss Lady," he replied, and she grinned.

"You sound like Okita-san," she teased, and his face promptly darkened.

"Sometimes I hate you," he told her.

"Lies," she shot back breezily, walking to the door.

"Yeah right," he muttered, following.

They walked into the conference room just as Enishi and Tomoe (who'd come back to work full time that week) were settling the lawyers in. Kamatari was still missing, so Tokio sent Sae to haul his ass to the conference room before greeting the lawyers and introducing Saitou. The older of the two, Mifune Toshirou, the museum's legal counsel, immediately began asking Saitou about the day the Shinuchi had been discovered. Tokio left Saitou to deal with the gentleman while she consulted Enishi and Tomoe, hoping against hope that they'd managed to get the reason behind the visit out of the lawyers. She was visibly disappointed when they said their every attempt at getting information had been stonewalled.

Kamatari breezed in and Tokio lectured him on being late:

"It's called being fashionably late, Tokio-chan," the effeminate man replied unapologetically.

"No, it's called looking for a new job," Tokio shot back, one eyebrow raised, annoyance on her face.

Kamatari sniffed, then sent Saitou a dark look.

"I blame you," he informed the policeman.

"Thanks, I'm always appreciative when people acknowledge my work," Saitou returned with a smirk.

"Plebeian," Kamatari muttered.

Sae announced that lunch was here, and she and Enishi's secretary (another new girl—Enishi's bad temper and abrupt nature ensured that he went through secretaries like Saitou went through cigarettes) made sure everyone got their food before leaving the group to their business.

"So then, Mifune-sensei," Tokio began, hands clasped on the table top before her. "You said you had some news for us when we spoke on the phone yesterday."

Mifune inclined his head, then cleared his throat.

"Yes," he said. "I met with the representatives of the city of Kyoto last week—we were not the only ones with a great many things going on at once," he added with a faint smile that faded a few seconds later. "The short of it is that the city intends to challenge our claim to the Shinuchi. And quite frankly, things look to be in their favor, unless I can find the gentleman who donated the Shinuchi to the museum."

"Will he make a difference?" Tomoe asked, looking worried.

Mifune nodded.

"The gentleman is a direct descendant of Arai Shakkuu."

The room was quiet for a long time, everyone staring at Mifune in shock.

"Are you serious?" Tokio asked finally, incredulous.

"Very, Takagi-san," Mifune replied.

"And you guys're sure?" Enishi asked.

"That's something that's easy to find out, if you have the proper means," Saitou said, lips pursed. "And from what I understand, you have that in spades."

Mifune smiled faintly and inclined his head.

"Saitou-san is correct," was all he said.

"So where is this man?" Tomoe asked.

"That's the problem, Kiyosato-san," Mifune's associate, a man named Ito, said. "We haven't been able to locate him. His last known address is no good—he hasn't been there for a decade."

Tokio sent Enishi a worried look, one that he returned.

This was not good. This was _very_ not good. There was no way the museum was financially stable enough at this point to meet Kyoto's challenge to their claim on the Shinuchi. They still hadn't recouped enough money for something like that—the accounts were still in the red, though it wasn't as bad as it had been a month ago. The loans and the donation from the historical society had helped pay for the new security system and the new lighting system (which together had cost them a small fortune), and it had helped pay the first installment on the new cases, but it wasn't enough to cover the cost of the new promotions campaign Tomoe had had to draw up. It wasn't enough to cover the renovations either, and until the insurance company coughed up the money the terms of their contract with them denoted, about the only saving grace there was that Anji was a phenomenal human being and was pretty much working for free at this point, coming in on his off days and working until well into the wee hours of the morning by himself to help them along as much as possible. Enishi and Kamatari had started helping him after hours, and guilt was making Tokio very seriously consider joining them.

All of their money was tied up in the museum. There was nothing left for filing a suit and fighting what would be, without doubt, a very intense legal battle. Even if Mifune worked pro bono, things wouldn't be any better for them—if they lost the claim, they'd be stuck paying the city's legal fees, and they'd either fall further into debt or go completely bankrupt.

"Give me the name," Saitou said, absently tapping his fingers on the table top. "I have ways of finding people who can't or don't want to be found."

Mifune raised his eyebrow.

"That doesn't sound quite legal, Saitou-san," he mildly remarked.

Saitou smiled lazily.

"You're entitled to your opinion, Mifune-sensei," he replied noncommittally.

"It's all right, Mifune-sensei," Tokio assured. "Don't worry—Saitou-san's quite trust-worthy."

"Hn," was Mifune's opinion of that statement, but he nevertheless slid a folder over to the police inspector.

Saitou flipped the folder open and reviewed the contents, then shut it and set it aside.

Lunch began then, and they discussed their options. Mifune and Ito both offered them their services pro bono, and Tokio smiled and accepted, though that didn't keep her from shooting Enishi another worried look.

At lunch's end, Tokio, Enishi, Tomoe, Kamatari, and Saitou saw the lawyers off, and as soon as they had disappeared down the stairs, Tokio sagged back against Saitou, who slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her back more comfortably against him.

"Well that was awful," she said dismally.

"It wasn't that bad," Kamatari chided, but he didn't sound convinced by his own words.

"Yeah right," Enishi muttered, scowling, hands in the pockets of his slacks. "We're in the shit if Kyoto wins custody."

No one said anything for a long while, and then Tomoe coughed politely.

"Saitou-san? What do you suppose the odds are that you can find the gentleman who donated the…katana?" she asked; no one but them and Sae knew about the Shinuchi, and Tokio intended to keep it that way until they knew if they were keeping the Shinuchi or not.

"I'll have his information to your lawyers tomorrow morning," Saitou said nonchalantly, watching the lawyers drive off as he absently rubbed Tokio's belly with one hand, his other in his pocket.

"Tomorrow?!" Tokio, Tomoe, Enishi and Kamatari repeated, surprised.

"That quick?" Kamatari asked.

"Bull!" Enishi said incredulously.

"But how is that possible?" Tomoe asked.

"I know a guy," Saitou said with a shrug.

Tokio frowned, wondering who Saitou was talking about, before it occurred to her that Okita used to be a hacker back in their department days. At that, she was immediately relieved—if Okita was the one looking for Arai Shakkuu's descendant, they had nothing to worry about.

Kamatari went to collect his design plans from the conference room, and Tomoe and Enishi walked off together, leaving Saitou and Tokio alone in the lobby.

"You were talking about Okita-san, weren't you?" she asked.

"Yeah." He gently patted her stomach. "He's a retard, but finding information's one thing he does well."

She nodded, then tilted her head back to look up at him.

"Are you going to leave soon?"

"Now, actually," he said.

She wrinkled her nose and sighed.

"Oh well," she muttered. "Thank you for having lunch with me."

He smirked.

"You're welcome," he replied, giving her stomach another pat. "Oi, don't worry, okay? We'll find your donor and you guys'll keep it."

"I really hope so," she said. "We could use the boost to our credibility, after the break-in."

"You'll get it," he said confidently, and she smiled.

"Ah, so this is why I keep you around," she teased, reaching up and looping her arms around his neck; he stooped down a little so she could reach.

"You're a cruel woman, Chiisai," he informed her, kissing the top of her head.

"Says the Big Bad Wolf of Bunkyo," she shot back, and he grinned.

"Takes one to know one," he said, and she laughed.

"Get out of here, jerk face," she said, still smiling.

"Gonna be home early?" he asked.

"Yeah," she assured.

"All right." He rose and she let go of him. "I'll see you later then."

"'Kay—have a good one."

"You too."

She kissed his cheek, and he kissed her forehead and then he strolled out of the museum as if he didn't have a care in the world, and she watched him until she couldn't see him anymore, a small smile on her face.

He was a creep and a jerk and a crank and neurotic, but he had his moments.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"You can't hit him, Hajime."

"What if he hits me first?"

"He won't."

"But what if he did?"

"_He won't_."

"_But what if he did_?"

"If you keep acting obnoxious _he_ won't have to," she snapped with a speaking look in his direction.

He glared at her but didn't say anything else—or rather, he didn't say anything else at a volume that she could hear.

Eiji looked back and forth at them and decided adults were weird.

Or maybe it was just these two. He wasn't sure yet whether or not his theory was applicable to adults in general or if his guardians were special like that.

The evening had gotten off to an interesting start; the second he had arrived at the museum, Tokio-oba had foisted her work off on Enishi-san (who hadn't been the least bit shy about telling Tokio-oba and everyone within a block of the museum what he thought about that) and they'd gone home to get cleaned up and dressed up for dinner at her parents' house. They'd gotten there just as Hajime-oji was unlocking the door, and Tokio-oba had said that was lucky. Hajime-oji had had a sour look on his face that Eiji took to mean he didn't agree.

The older man wasn't dumb enough to say so out loud, though.

So they'd all taken turns in the bath room and then gotten dressed, Tokio-oba telling him and Hajime-oji what to wear. It had been an odd and bittersweet experience for Eiji—his mother had picked out his clothing for him for the first day of school, or for special occasions, and Tokio-oba's doing it for him now reminded him of those days and underscored how much life had changed since then. But he only felt a little twinge, like a sore muscle moved too far in one direction too soon. It was even a little nice: Tokio-oba ironed his shirt for him in her and Hajime-oji's room and let him watch, and told him that he had to be careful to fold his trousers just so when they came home later, so that the crease in the legs would stay crisp and sharp. He wasn't keen on wearing a tie, but he also knew it wasn't an argument he could win, so he didn't bother, just looped the tie around his neck to wait for Hajime-oji to help him. He'd been trying to watch how the older man tied his tie, but he couldn't make any sense of the process; his guardian's hands moved too fast and executed these bizarre moves, and the result was a Windsor knot that looked like the handiwork of someone who dressed up stars for the red carpet.

He'd been hard pressed not to laugh when Tokio-oba had pointed to Hajime-oji's suit where it hung on the closet door and said,

"I already picked out what you're wearing."

The look on the older man's face had been priceless, and Eiji had had to leave the room when he snorted and Hajime-oji shot him a killing look that promised retribution (it had come when he'd gotten his tie tied—Eiji was completely convinced that if not for Tokio-oba's presence in the room, he'd have been strangled with his tie).

He and his guardian were then unceremoniously booted out of the bedroom, and Tokio-oba got dressed while he challenged the man to a game on his PS2 and got his ass handed to him, to his complete and total shock.

"What?" Hajime-oji asked, when Eiji had stared at him, eyes about to roll out of his head.

"You're not supposed to be that good!" Eiji replied, outraged—it had taken him _forever_ to get that far! How in the hell had he _done_ that?!

Hajime-oji smirked.

"Blame Souji, brat," he said. "You can only hang around a geek as big as him for so long before it starts to infect you too."

"You guys suck!" Eiji whined. "You're _old_, you're not _supposed_ to be good at video games!"

Hajime-oji snorted and whapped the back of his head in an almost affectionate manner.

"Shut up," he ordered. "Bitching won't make you get better, ahou."

"You guys still suck."

"Life sucks—get a helmet."

Tokio-oba had appeared then, in a dress Eiji had never seen before (and he was pretty familiar with the clothing in her and Hajime-oji's closet, since she had a habit of forgetting things and sending him into the closet to go hunting for them).

Now. Tokio-oba, in Eiji's expert opinion, thank you very much, always looked pretty. He had yet to see her not looking pretty (mornings didn't count—no one looked pretty first thing in the morning). In fact, Eiji was exceedingly smug about Tokio-oba; she was the prettiest "mom" in his entire class (this maybe had something to do with the fact that she was also the youngest "mom," but whatever, he wasn't splitting hairs or anything). He had been very proud to show her off at the assembly, when she and Hajime-oji had attended to see him get an award. He'd been proud to show Hajime-oji off too, but for a different reason—Hajime-oji was the scariest "dad" in his class, hands down, no contest. His friends had been thoroughly terrified of the man, and Eiji had enjoyed every minute of it, because he'd won the bet about whose dad was scarier (so Hajime-oji wasn't his dad per se, but again—he wasn't splitting hairs or anything).

But back to Tokio-oba. She was the prettiest "mom" in his class, also hands down, no contest. And because he had the prettiest "mom" in his entire class, he hadn't minded when she'd kissed him in front of his peers and gotten lipstick on his cheek and then wiped it off.

But tonight…Tokio-oba had out done herself.

When he and Hajime-oji saw her, both of them stared in surprised silence, and it took her a moment to notice, because she was fighting with the clasp of her bracelet. She didn't realize it was unnaturally quiet in the apartment until she let out a rather ferocious growl of irritation and looked up at Hajime-oji, frowning:

"Hajime, could you please do this stupid…what?" she asked, staring right back at them, blinking.

Eiji glanced at Hajime-oji, wondering if he should let his guardian answer, then decided that might not happen for a while when he noticed Hajime-oji didn't look quite like he was paying attention—if Eiji hadn't known better, he'd have thought the older man had been stunned speechless.

"You look pretty, Tokio-oba," he said finally, unable to entirely keep the surprised appreciation out of his voice. "Even prettier than usual."

She immediately beamed at him.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she said cheerfully. "You look handsome yourself."

He grinned back at her, then asked,

"I could do your bracelet for you, if you want."

"I'd appreciate it, since _someone_ seems to be in la-la-land," she replied with an amused look in Hajime-oji's direction.

That "accusation" had gotten Hajime-oji's attention:

"I am not in la-la-land," he said, sounding a tad offended, and Eiji wrinkled his nose; it sounded weird to hear Hajime-oji say "la-la-land."

"Uh-huh," was Tokio-oba's reply, and she sent Eiji a mischievous wink that had him grinning as he bent over her wrist to fasten the clasp of her bracelet.

Once he had, he stepped back and waited for Hajime-oji, who was now awake, to say something. To his surprise, his guardian did nothing more than eye Tokio-oba's attire very intently, before asking,

"Ready?"

"Uh-huh," she replied. "I just need my purse and we can go."

"Brat," Hajime-oji said, rising, "go grab Tokio's purse."

"I can do that," Tokio-oba said, but Hajime-oji only glanced at Eiji and said,

"So can he."

The look on the older man's face suggested that Eiji comply, so he did, turning and walking into the bedroom and grabbing Tokio-oba's purse—her "going-out" one, which was smaller than her everyday one—and started for the door again, but paused when he heard Hajime-oji's voice, sounding very appreciative and amused.

"My baby looks good."

Eiji made a face; oh great, they were being gross, _again_. Geez. No wonder he'd been sent in there.

So he waited a few seconds, because he hated walking in on them when they were being gross and because Hajime-oji always got really annoyed when he did. Eiji silently thought that was totally Hajime-oji's fault; if he'd just close the door a little more often or something, Eiji wouldn't be _traumatized_ like that all the time (okay, so he wasn't, but it was still gross). The boy had figured out that when the door to his guardians' door was shut, there was a reason for it, and as he had absolutely no desire to know what that reason was, he always stayed away until the door was open again.

He didn't leave the room until Tokio-oba asked what he was doing, whereupon he hopped off the bed—where he'd plopped down to wait until it was clear—and sauntered out of the room with her purse in hand.

"Nothin'," he said with a shrug, holding out her purse. "Here's your purse, Tokio-oba."

"All right, let's blow," Hajime-oji said, hand on the small of Tokio-oba's back, ushering her to the door.

"You're in a hurry," Tokio-oba observed, sounding surprised.

"I just wanna get this over with," Hajime-oji replied, and got whacked in the shoulder with Tokio-oba's going-out purse.

Eiji fed and shut Hachi up in the bath room while they were out (Hajime-oji was weird about letting Hachi run around the apartment when no one was home), and then they walked to the station and took the train to Nerima Ward, and then walked to Tokio-oba's parent's. Hajime-oji took the street side, while Eiji and Tokio-oba walked hand-in-hand on the inside.

"Mama's just dying to meet you," she told him.

"How come?" he asked curious, and beginning to get a little nervous without entirely knowing why; really, it was just Tokio-oba's mom. And as nice as Tokio-oba was, how bad could her mom be?

"I think mostly curiosity," Tokio-oba replied. "Plus, I'm sure Papa said a whole bunch of nice things about you."

At that, Eiji grinned; he'd been all set to dislike—even hate—Kojuro-san for making Tokio-oba so sad all the time, but the old man had won him over. He hadn't treated Eiji like a little kid. He'd been treated like a man.

"Now that your elder brother's gone, it's up to you to carry on the family name," Kojuro-san had added.

Plus, with those craggy features and rough voice, Kojuro-san looked and sounded like what Eiji had always thought a grandfather should, and it was hard to dislike a man who so perfectly exemplified that.

They arrived at the house soon enough, a nice home in a good neighborhood, and were met at the door by Morinusuke, whose appearance immediately made Eiji's nerves settle.

He and Tokio-oba's little brother had gotten along very well from their first meeting, finding common ground in video games and the MPD, which Eiji wanted to join when he got old enough, just like Brother had.

"Hey Eiji-kun!" Morinusuke immediately said, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "Mama said you'd be coming tonight."

"Yo," the boy replied, grinning.

"Hey Sis, Saitou-san," Morinusuke said, leaning down to kiss Tokio-oba's cheek and send Hajime-oji a respectful nod, both of which were returned. "Come on in—Papa's in the living room."

"And Mama?" Tokio-oba asked.

"Feh—kitchen, of course," Morinusuke replied with a grin. "Where else would she be when we've got company over?"

"I'm not company you little creep," Tokio-oba shot back, swatting his arm.

"_Duh_—Eiji-kun's company," Morinusuke said, rolling his eyes. "You're just family."

He then ducked so that Tokio-oba's attempt to swat him again failed.

They left their shoes on the rack in the entry, were outfitted with slippers, and then followed Morinusuke to the living room. Kojuro-san was indeed already there, seated on a zanbuton and waiting patiently.

"Hi Kojuro-san," Eiji immediately said, smiling, when he saw the old man.

Kojuro-san smiled faintly at him and bobbed his head ever so slightly.

"Hello Eiji-kun. How have you been?"

"Real good, sir."

"'Very good,'" Hajime-oji corrected, tapping the top of his head lightly with his knuckles.

"Right, very good, I mean," Eiji repeated with a nod.

Kojuro-san nodded as well.

"I'm pleased to hear that," he said, then looked at Hajime-oji, who had a hand on the top of Eiji's head. "Saitou," he said shortly.

"Takagi," Hajime-oji said, voice just as clipped.

"Still alive, eh?"

"So sorry to disappoint you," Hajime-oji replied, not sounding the least bit sorry.

"Oh I'm sure," was Kojuro-san's dryly drawled response.

"First round's over," Tokio-oba cut in, sending both men disapproving looks. "First, and last. Behave, you two."

Both grumbled out a sort of affirmative reply that Eiji couldn't make out at all, and then Tokio-oba stepped forward and went to her father.

Eiji thought it was nothing short of amazing, the way Kojuro-san's expression changed when he looked at Tokio-oba; gone were the grave eyes and serious mouth, replaced by a warmth that made Kojuro-san look even more like Eiji's ideal grandfather.

"Hello Papa," Tokio-oba said, kissing her father's forehead.

"Hello Tokioko," Kojuro-san said, voice affectionate.

Morinusuke showed him and Hajime-oji to their seats while Tokio-oba talked to her father, and just as Eiji was wondering where Tokio-oba's mom was, a small, very well-dressed woman appeared in the doorway with a tray in hand and huge smile on her face.

Eiji's jaw dropped—it was like looking at an older Tokio-oba! Her hair was shorter, in a bob favored by a lot of Japanese mothers and housewives (and more than a few of the mothers of his classmates), and her nails were well-manicured, and her clothing was more matronly, but other than that…there stood Tokio-oba.

"Hello everyone!" she cheerfully greeted. "It's so nice to see you again, Hajime-san. How have you been?"

"Just fine, Katsuko-san," Hajime-oji said immediately, and he actually sounded pleasant—not fake-pleasant the way he sometimes did right before he really whacked Eiji good for something or another, but real-pleasant, like he meant it. "You?"

"Absolutely wonderful," Katsuko-san replied. Her smile widened, something Eiji hadn't thought possible. "And I'm even better now that you've arrived."

Hajime-oji returned her smile with (a genuine!) one of his own.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and when Eiji looked around to see who it was, found Tokio-oba at his side. She winked at him and nudged him forward with a murmured,

"Why don't you introduce yourself to Mama, Eiji?"

"Uh…sure," he replied, and hesitantly made his way towards Katsuko-san, who had set the tray down and was passing out cups of steaming tea. At his approach, she paused.

"Uh…hi," Eiji said uncertainly. "I'm Mishima Eiji."

He bowed very low, and then paused mid-rise when a hand suddenly touched his shoulder. He looked up to find Katsuko-san smiling at him.

"No need to be so formal, Eiji-chan," she said cheerfully.

Eiji was barely able to keep from wrinkling his nose—Eiji-_chan_?

"Mama," Morinusuke said, frowning. "Eiji-kun's not a baby—he's ten, you know."

"Oh, my mistake," Katsuko-san returned, looking sheepish. "My apologies, Eiji-kun."

"'S okay," Eiji decided to say, unable to stay offended at someone who reminded him so much of one of his two favorite people in the world.

"I'm Katsuko, Tokio and Morinusuke's mother, but you already knew that." she said.

Eiji wasn't sure what the proper response to that was, so he nodded.

"Yes ma'am."

"Oh no—you call me Grandmother, young man," Katsuko-san said fondly, and that was about the moment Hajime-oji choked, audibly, on his tea.

Eiji was the only one who noticed the evilly amused look on Kojuro-san's face; Tokio-oba and Katsuko-san were fussing over the still-choking Hajime-oji, and Morinusuke was doubled over and laughing silently, shoulders shaking.

Dinner wasn't eventful, unless one counted the snarky barbs and evil eyes Hajime-oji and Kojuro-san threw at each other. Eiji didn't pay too much attention to all that—Katsuko-san's cooking was much more interesting. He didn't even feel at all bad about preferring it to Tokio-oba's cooking, and he decided that he was totally fine with calling her "Grandmother" if it meant he'd get to come back for more food in the near future. He said as much to Katsuko-san, who laughed and ruffled his hair gently and said,

"I'd love to have you again, Eiji-kun, it'd be my pleasure."

They retired to the living room after dinner, and Katsuko-san provided cookies and green tea, then brought out a photo album (or ten) to show Hajime-oji. Eiji had a load of fun seeing pictures of Tokio-oba as a little girl. She was always smiling and always cute and girly—in other words, she hadn't really changed much.

He didn't understand why Tokio-oba looked so embarrassed, though.

He also enjoyed seeing photos of Morinusuke and Sada, who he had yet to meet. He'd spoken with her on the phone a few times, and had decided he liked her. Hajime-oji said she was a total freak, but Eiji supposed that those artist types were supposed to be a little freaky, or else they wouldn't be artist types.

Plus she called him "E-man," which was goofy and dumb, but he liked it; he'd never had a nickname before.

But when Morinusuke nudged him and subtly pointed out the PlayStation 3 hooked up to the TV in the living room, Eiji lost interest in the photos.

"Yo, Sis," Morinusuke asked, sending Eiji a wink. "It all right if Eiji plays a game with me? On the PS3?"

"Knock yourself out," Hajime-oji said; he was clearly enjoying looking through the photos, nearly as much as Tokio-oba wasn't.

That was all the encouragement they needed: the two immediately set themselves up in front of the TV, controllers in hand, to play a round of _Virtua Fighter 5_, Eiji with a neat stack of cookies on a napkin beside him. Kojuro-san quit his intent perusal of Katsuko-san, Tokio-oba and Hajime-oji to watch Eiji and Morinusuke play, which surprised the boy.

"You like these kinda things, Kojuro-san?" he asked.

"No," Kojuro-san replied. "I think they're a terrible waste of time. But I can't deny that the detail on some of these games is impressive," he admitted, and Eiji grinned.

"For real," the boy agreed.

It quickly became apparent to Eiji that Morinusuke hadn't racked up a lot of time with this particular game. Eiji had been lucky enough to become friendly with a boy in his class—friendly enough that he'd been over to the boy's house several times, and played with him on his PS3. So Eiji was familiar with the game system, and knew enough about this particular game to figure out the best method for winning a match with the character of his choice.

He felt redeemed when he wiped the floor with Morinusuke—even Kojuro-san was impressed.

"I believe the term 'sudden death' applies here," the old man observed, one eyebrow raised in surprise.

"I ain't done yet," Morinusuke said stubbornly. "Let's go, kiddo."

"Sure," Eiji returned with a shrug.

So they played again, with similar results in less time. And then again and again and again, with Eiji beating Morinusuke faster and faster each time.

The allure of pwning Morinusuke's butt wore off soon enough, and after the fifteenth beat down, Eiji set his controller down, rose and stretched and said,

"Yeah, I'm done, Morinusuke."

The young man's jaw dropped.

"_What_?" he asked, incredulous. "No way! Come on, man, one more game."

"Naw, I'm gettin' kinda tired of it," Eiji said diplomatically.

"Aw come on!" Morinusuke replied, frowning. "One more! I'll totally beat you this time, I know it!"

"I don't think so," Eiji said. "I think I'm just gonna get some more cookies."

"You should quit now, Morinusuke," Kojuro-san dryly advised. "Quite frankly, the boy's showing you a mercy in not continuing."

"I'll totally beat him this time!"

"I highly doubt that," was his father's ruthlessly honest opinion, and Eiji winced.

Morinusuke, on the other hand, wasn't fazed in the slightest:

"Geez Papa, way to show your confidence in your son," he muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Morinusuke, Eiji-kun has won fifteen of fifteen matches. Winning one game out of sixteen is not a very impressive ratio."

"But I'd still win one," Morinusuke pointed out, and Kojuro-san sighed and shook his head.

"Never mind," he muttered. "I forgot that logic has no place in this household."

Eiji, in the meantime, had slipped back over to where Katsuko-san, Tokio-oba and Hajime-oji were sitting. The photo albums had long since been set aside, and Katsuko-san was currently telling Hajime-oji a story—and from the look on Tokio-oba's face, it was not only a story about her, but also a story concerning one of her less-than-stellar moments.

Hajime-oji, being Hajime-oji, was absolutely loving it, of course.

"…was so serious about it, too!" Katsuko-san was saying, laughing. "We thought it was so cute—I have a video of her doing it somewhere—"

"No you don't!" Tokio-oba blurted, eyes wide and horrified.

"What video?" Eiji asked, plopping down next to Tokio-oba, who groaned and hung her head.

"A video of Tokio calling birds," Katsuko-san said cheerfully.

Eiji's brow wrinkled.

"Tokio-oba used to call birds?" he asked, and Tokio-oba groaned louder.

"Well, not exactly," Katsuko-san said with a chuckle. "You see, when Tokio was a little girl—I'd say around three or so—"

"Oh gods, not again," Tokio-oba moaned, shoulders hunching.

"—she used to try to call birds. Actually, she used to try to call eagles. She had something of a fixation with eagles, I don't know why. Anyway, any time she'd see a bird in the sky, she'd say, "Eagle!" and then she'd let out a shriek. The first time she did it, she scared me half to death—I thought she was being murdered! But when I asked her what she was doing, she said she was calling her eagle friend."

Eiji bit his lips to keep from laughing—oh man. No wonder Tokio-oba looked so miserable: Hajime-oji was _never_ going to let her live that down.

"Oh," he said finally, when he was sure he wouldn't laugh. "I see."

"Traitor," Tokio-oba huffed under her breath.

"He just knows a good story when he hears one," Hajime-oji said, grinning that grin of his that made other people piss themselves.

"Oi!"

The group looked over at Morinusuke, and found him eyeing them with displeasure. Or rather, a specific one of them:

"Eiji. Come on, man."

"Oh he doesn't want to," Katsuko-san said, waving her hand. "And really, Morinusuke, I believe you've played enough."

"Nuh-uh—not 'til I beat him."

Hajime-oji raised an eyebrow.

"You got owned by a ten-year-old?" he asked wryly.

"_Pwned_," Eiji corrected, and Hajime-oji whistled, then reached over and ruffled his hair.

"Damn, Morinusuke," he said, amused. "That's sad."

"Fifteen times," Eiji said, not quite able to keep from gloating, not when Hajime-oji looked so impressed.

"Ooo," Tokio-oba said, wincing sympathetically. "_That's_ a pain that's gonna linger."

"Heard that," Hajime-oji murmured, sending Eiji an amused grin that the boy returned ten-fold.

"Yeah yeah yeah," Morinusuke said shortly, waving the commentary off. "Whatever—let's go, kid. You owe me a rematch."

"So he can annihilate you for the sixteenth time?" Hajime-oji asked dryly, eyebrow twitching upwards again.

"I'll win this time," Morinusuke said confidently. "Come on Eiji, one more time."

"That's what you said last time," Eiji said, wanting to avoid playing again against Morinusuke because he was pretty sure he'd just win again, and at this point, it wasn't really fun anymore. "And the time before that and the time before that and the time before that—"

"But I know I will this time!"

"You said that last time too," Eiji replied. "And the time before that, and the time before that and the time before that—"

"I mean it this time, though!"

"Which is the same thing you said last time, and the time before that and the time before that and the time before that—"

"I'm detecting a pattern here," Hajime-oji said to Tokio-oba quietly, leaning over.

"Well, that is what they pay you for," she replied.

Morinusuke finally decided he'd defended his position more than adequately:

"Get back over here you little cheat—I want a rematch!"

Eiji snorted.

"Feh—you _must_ be tired of living." he said, complete with the sneer he'd learned to mimic from Hajime-oji; he hadn't wanted to do this, but them was fightin' words right there.

Tokio-oba promptly burst out laughing.

"'You must be tired of living'?" she repeated, still laughing. "Eiji, where in the world did you hear that?"

"From Hajime-oji," Eiji replied, wondering what was so funny. "He says it all the time."

"Since when?" Tokio-oba asked, dabbing at her eyes.

"Since always."

"I've _never_ heard him say that."

"Well, I guess you never got him cranky enough—he's always sayin' it to Okita-san an' them. An' me, sometimes. Mostly when we're doin' my language drills."

Tokio-oba looked over at Hajime-oji, who returned her gaze looking utterly unconcerned.

"Yes?" he drawled.

"'You must be tired of living'?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"When idiots persist in pissing me off, that's the only conclusion I can come to," Hajime-oji replied placidly.

Tokio-oba looked like she was going to start laughing again.

"You are _not_ well, you know that?" she asked.

He shrugged, and she started laughing, and Eiji cocked his head and decided that maybe, just maybe, he'd figured it out.

It wasn't adults in general who were weird, it was just those two.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

It was with incredible, excruciating relief that Saitou threw himself down on his bed that night upon arriving home.

The evening had not quite been the Apocalypse that he'd been expecting, but it hadn't been a child's bedtime fairy tale, either.

Especially not the part where he and Kojuro had spent "quality time" together.

That had been Katsuko's inspired idea, and Saitou liked the woman plenty, but he was starting to think she was at least half as screwy as his old man. Tokio had looked extremely nervous at her mother's suggestion that Kojuro and Saitou have a sit out in the backyard, just the two of them, but she didn't say a word. Morinusuke had been careful to make eye contact with no one, and Eiji had just seemed confused by the sudden gloom that hung over the room at such a seemingly innocuous suggestion.

Kojuro ended it when he rose and said, looking none too happy,

"Well come on then."

What had followed was the most intense face-off of Saitou's entire life.

They walked out to the patio, and after shutting the door, Kojuro gestured for Saitou to take a seat.

"No thanks, I'm good," he'd said, wondering how many bodies the old man had buried in his backyard over the years (fine, he was paranoid, but he also knew that Kojuro was fully capable).

Kojuro shrugged and seated himself on one of the chairs.

"Fine," he replied, getting comfortable. "Stand for all I care."

"I though you were supposed to be making nice, Takagi," Saitou sardonically said.

Kojuro snorted derisively.

"'Making nice'," he muttered. "I'd sooner leap in front of a train. No, delinquent, this isn't where we make up and become the best of friends. This is where I humor my wife and we pretend we can stand each other for longer than a millisecond. It helps if you keep your mouth shut, incidentally."

"Feh," was Saitou's view on the matter.

Hostile silence lay between them for some time, and then Saitou dryly inquired,

"Not that it really makes a difference, old man, but what's your problem with me?"

"You mean aside from the fact that you're an uncouth hooligan?"

"Sticks and stones, geezer."

Kojuro sent him an ugly look.

"Don't forget that this geezer can whip your insolent hide."

"When his arthritis lets him," Saitou taunted.

Kojuro smiled unpleasantly.

"That the best you can do?" he asked. "You may be a wolf, boy, but demon beats wolf any day. Or do you need another demonstration?"

Saitou snorted but didn't reply or in any way call the elder man's bluff, and Kojuro grunted.

"So, it does think—wonders never cease," he said dryly, and Saitou glared at him.

"What's your problem?" he snapped. "I never even saw you until the night you tried to lop my balls off."

"You have no idea how much I regret not doing that when I had the chance," Kojuro matter-of-factly informed him.

"Asshole."

"Sticks and stones, dumb ass."

That was the moment Saitou decided he could have really, honestly liked Kojuro, if only the older man weren't a homicidal maniac out for his blood.

Other than that tiny, minute detail, it would've been great.

"So what? You hate my guts 'cause you think I'm a delinquent?"

"No, I _know_ you're a delinquent—by the way, if you do an unauthorized search on my family ever again I'm going to skin you and make coin purses out of you." Kojuro eyed one very stunned Saitou out of the corner of his eye critically. "You look like you'd yield a good hundred and fifty, if I was sparing."

Saitou stared at him, eyes wide, then demanded,

"How the _fuck_ do you know about that?!"

Kojuro sent him a flat look.

"So much for thinking you had a brain and used it on occasion," he muttered. "What does she _see_ in that empty head?"

"Shut up asshole!" Saitou snarled. "How the fuck did you find out about that?!"

"I have my methods," Kojuro said, sounding as if that should have been obvious. "Or are you actually stupid enough to believe that I've been an officer of the MPD for nearly thirty years and never made a single contact or built up a network within the department?"

"But," Saitou protested, shocked—far too shocked to feign calm. "That's—that's classified information!"

"Indeed—as are my family's records," Kojuro shot back, voice hard.

Saitou's mouth snapped shut; to a certain extent, Kojuro was right. The only records available to the MPD without restriction were arrest records. But in addition to arrest records, Saitou had accessed personal, detailed records in the government database that only someone at Police Inspector or higher could access, and even then only with the express, written-and-signed-and-stamped-in-triplicate consent of the head of national security.

Kojuro snorted.

"You must've been born yesterday, boy," he muttered. "How do you think I've survived as long as I have? Had as successful a career as I have? You don't get ahead without a network of people you can trust, either within the government or outside of it—even as softheaded as you are, nine…I'm sorry, _ten_ years with the MPD ought to have taught you that by now, if nothing else."

"How do you know how long I've been with the MPD?" Saitou demanded, suddenly paranoid and nervous—at all costs, Kojuro could not find out about what Saitou had been doing prior to working with the MPD. The old man was tough, no denying that, but the government was tougher…and not inclined to overlook a leak, however small.

"Your record with the MPD is fair game with the proper clearance," Kojuro informed him as if Saitou should have known that already (he did, but paranoia had a funny way of turning him into a complete and total retard at times, and this was one of them). The old man shot him a flat, unfriendly look. "And unlike _some_ people who _don't_ have that clearance, _I_ do."

Saitou managed to keep from snapping back that he had a level of clearance Kojuro could only dream about; telling Tokio about his past with the government was one thing—telling Kojuro was quite another.

Plus he doubted it would improve the old man's opinion of him any. In fact, odds were good that revealing that information would just make Saitou's already impressively deep grave several hundred feet deeper, and he was a believer in the recommendation to "Stop while you're ahead."

Not that he was ahead by any stretch of the imagination, but it was still good advice and still applied.

Sort of.

…Oh _whatever_.

The two men eyed each other in silence for some time, quite hostile and vaguely calculating.

"So what else?" Saitou asked finally. "I'm a delinquent because I sneak into records I ought to keep out of?"

"Not simply because you have no respect for authority," Kojuro replied. "You've garnered yourself quite the mythos in Kabuki-cho for brawling and drinking."

"I'm not a drunk," Saitou immediately said.

"And a very good thing you aren't—you have enough vices already," Kojuro returned, and Saitou sent him an ugly look. "No, I'm referring to your little penchant for drinking and then starting bar brawls."

"Drink in Kabuki-cho often, do you?" Saitou asked with a sneer, a little uncomfortable now, because Kojuro was more than justified in what he was saying.

"Oh, I don't need to—eventually your exploits make the rounds of the MPD," was the dry reply. "And if even half the stories are true, you're still as much a delinquent, just not as fight-crazy."

"How'd you figure that?"

"You obviously lack control," Kojuro immediately said.

"Oh bullshit," Saitou snapped.

Kojuro didn't look impressed.

"You don't think so?" he challenged mildly.

"So I get a little touchy when I drink, so what?" Saitou threw back.

"So you act in a manner disgraceful for a man of your age," Kojuro snapped. "Knocking someone on his ass is a lousy way of settling things—and yes, idiot, I'm aware of the fact that I've started fights with you twice," he added darkly when Saitou opened his mouth to say as much.

"At least you're honest about your hypocrisy," Saitou decided. Pause. "Asshole," he added as an afterthought.

"The first time I only wanted to see if the rumors were true," Kojuro said.

"What about the second time?"

"That was completely justified," was the reply.

Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"In what universe?"

Kojuro sent him a frigidly irate look.

"You _touched_ my little girl," he said, voice chilling.

Saitou supposed he could appreciate that outlook, even if he still didn't think he should have been attacked the way he had. Maybe the day he had a daughter, that would change.

"All right, Pot," Saitou said, deciding to leave that one alone, "so why can't Kettle knock the shit out of people with impunity?"

Kojuro let out a short, sarcastic bark of laughter.

"Who said I've escaped with impunity?" he replied with a dark smirk. "Or did you think I was popular around here for my treatment of the likes of you?" Kojuro's eyes narrowed as he considered Saitou. "Hn. Then again, taking into account the absolutely _stunning_ mental prowess you've been demonstrating this evening—"

"Knock it off bastard," Saitou snapped, knowing he shouldn't let the old man get to him but unable to ignore the slight against him.

"No one ever said I had to be nice," Kojuro mildly pointed out. "I just can't hit you. Anything else goes."

"Tokio asked you to try to be friendly," Saitou replied through gritted teeth.

"Yes, she did," Kojuro dryly agreed, one eyebrow raised. "And by asking me to _try_, she allowed me the option of _not_ being friendly."

"How does your wife stand you?" Saitou muttered irritably, though he had to grudgingly admit that the old man had a point.

"I happen to like my wife," Kojuro returned. "_You_, on the other hand…."

Saitou sent him a nasty look; Kojuro raised an eyebrow in challenge.

"I'd get used to me if I was you," Saitou said in a cold, quiet tone. "Because I intend to stick around. You can't scare me the way you scared off all those other _little boys_, old man."

Kojuro watched him with a placid expression on his face.

"It's 'I were'," he said finally, and Saitou was so thrown off he stared at the old man in open confusion.

"What?" he asked finally.

"It's 'I were' not 'I was'," Kojuro said blandly, going back to considering his backyard in the dark. "Your threats might be more effective if you spoke properly."

Saitou bristled and would have pounced on the man and strangled him if Eiji hadn't opened the door at that moment and said,

"Oi, Hajime-oji, Tokio-oba says we oughta get goin'."

"Fine," Saitou said tautly. "I was getting tired of this anyway."

In truth, he wanted to both shred Kojuro into itty bitty little pieces that no one would ever be able to find, and tear out his own hair and scream. This man was maddening, infuriating (how else did you describe someone who debated the semantics of the word "try" with you?), and made Saitou want to kill something—preferably him. He'd never been so frustrated in his life, not even when dealing with Okita at his most irritating. Always before he'd been able to find some way of winning, but by the gods—he didn't see how he could win against Kojuro.

It was most likely that sense of frustration that made him say, before going back inside with Eiji,

"I was serious—I'm not going anywhere."

"Hn," was Kojuro's response, and he didn't look over at him. "We'll certainly see how well you keep that vow, won't we?"

Son of a bitch didn't even let him have the last word.

They'd said their good-byes and walked back to the train station with Eiji between them, cheerfully recounting each one of his sixteen wins against Morinusuke blow-by-blow. Tokio had politely listened and encouraged him; Saitou had only been half-listening, still pissed off and irritated by his stand-off with Kojuro, troubled by the vague feeling that somehow or another, he'd come out the loser in that encounter.

Now that he was home, he felt vaguely better, if only because the fact that he was home meant this heinous evening was over with and he'd survived.

Perhaps not with all his pride intact, but he'd survived.

"Tired?" Tokio asked, entering the room, in the process of taking off her earrings.

"Yes," he said shortly, closing his eyes, head pillowed on his arms.

"So change and go to bed—you'll wrinkle your suit."

"Let the damn thing get wrinkled," he muttered, "not like I give a shit."

"Obviously," she said archly. Pause. "I suppose things didn't exactly go well with Papa?"

"Oh no, that went just _dandy_," he sarcastically said. "In fact, I think he's really looking forward to _eating my liver_, now."

She sighed and plopped down on the bed next to him.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you he won't hate you forever?" she asked, laying her head on his chest.

"Not particularly, since that won't happen until he drops dead, or I do, which ever comes first."

She sighed again.

"Okay, what if I told you I was really happy with you for not letting Papa goad you into a fight?" she tried.

"I guess," he said finally, willing to try to get into a more pleasant frame of mind when she was trying so hard to help.

"Gee, thanks," she said, poking him in the side, and he smirked faintly, able to see her rolling her eyes in his head.

"I do try," he replied, smirk widening when he heard her mumble uncharitable things about him under her breath as she got up.

He listened to her move around for a little while, not really paying attention; the familiar sounds of her going about her business lulled him into a complacent mood, somewhere between aware and not.

"Oi," she called, "you asleep over there?"

"No," he murmured. "Gettin' there, though."

"You should change," she said, in that tone of voice that implied that if he didn't he'd be sorry later.

_Feh—then I'll be sorry, then_, he thought.

"Oh well," he said instead, knowing she wouldn't take as much affront to that as she would to "Feh—then I'll be sorry, then."

He heard her pad over to the bed, felt it dip when she got on it, but didn't move or open his eyes. He was vaguely curious, wondering what she was doing—now he sort of wished he'd been paying more attention to all the sounds she'd been making earlier—but not interested enough to open his eyes. Besides, he'd find out soon enough, so he elected to just wait and see.

That resolve was sorely tested when she straddled his hips.

_I like where this is going_, he decided, suddenly really happy he'd had to put up with Kojuro tonight—looked like he was about to be rewarded.

"Hajime," she murmured.

"Hn," he grunted in feigned nonchalance.

"Look at me for a second."

He lazily cracked one eye open…and was blinded by a flash of light.

"The hell?" he asked, blinking. "What'd you do, crazy?"

"Took your picture," she said cheerfully, eyes on the display of her digital camera. She smiled in satisfaction. "Perfect."

"You blinded me, woman," he muttered, taking a hand out from behind his head to rub his eyes.

"Well, you're so weird about taking pictures," she said mildly.

"So you _blinded_ me?"

"No, I surprised you," she corrected loftily, "I hate your fake smile—you can tell it's fake."

"That's why you call it a fake smile," he replied, still trying to blink the spots away.

"Oh shut up," she said, flopping down on the bed next to him and showing him the display. "Look. You came out good."

He took the camera and looked and supposed he had—not that he could really tell with a bunch of green spots dancing around all over his line of vision.

"What's with the sudden need to blind me?" he asked, looking back at her.

She rolled her eyes at him, but didn't rise to the bait, instead shrugging, and then reaching up to play with his hair.

"Just wanted a picture of you, you cranky old man," she replied with a smirk no doubt modeled after his. "So I can show you off when people ask."

Her answer—that "cranky old man" bit aside—pleased him immensely.

"Oh?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Do people ask about me often?"

"Not really, but I could always show you off anyway," she said, and he chuckled and slid an arm around her.

"All right, I approve the blinding," he said, and she let out a snort of laughter and hugged him.

"Jerk," she murmured affectionately.

"Mm—I love it when you talk dirty."

She sent him one of those looks she kept in reserve especially for moments like this—this one was the "You're-not-_nearly_-as-funny-as-you-_think_-you-are-ahou" one—then let out a small noise of surprise and sat up.

"I forgot, I've got something for you," she said, hopping off the bed.

"Does it involve you being naked at all?"

"_No_, Pervert."

He sighed and stacked his arms behind his head again, still disappointed despite having been expecting that answer.

She dug through her purse, fished out her wallet, dug through that and then found whatever it was she'd been looking for, apparently, because she shut her wallet, dropped it back into her purse and flounced back to the bed. To his pleasant surprise, she straddled his hips again—he could totally get used to that.

"This is for you, to put in your wallet, so that when people ask you about your fantastic, awesome girlfriend, you can show them." she primly instructed, making him grin.

She presented him with the photograph, and he accepted it and took one look at it and laughed.

She was wearing the hooker boots with what appeared to be the original costume, and if it was, she hadn't been kidding when she'd said wearing it would get her arrested for indecent exposure: the skirt was barely there, and could barely be called a skirt, really. The top was just as nonexistent, covering only what was strictly necessary with as little material as possible, and if he hadn't already known from…ahem, _personal_…experience, he'd have been surprised by how toned she was; she had the body of someone who'd been training diligently in a martial art of some kind for years, and even now, more than a year after she'd stopped going, there wasn't much of a difference (he suspected she found time to practice, somehow).

Her hair was darker and longer in the photo, which made him wonder if it was actually hers or a wig, and he couldn't tell for sure, because she was wearing a lot of makeup, but she looked a lot younger in it than she did now. She was also striking a rather risqué pose (_Damn Chiisai, didn't think you had it in you_, he thought in real amusement), and Saitou knew he was going to be keeping the photo to himself.

"How long ago was this?" he asked, grinning.

She smiled, shrugging.

"Oh, I guess…ten years ago, or thereabouts? Kamatari got it into his head to throw a Halloween party because he liked the idea of dressing up, and we picked out each other's costumes."

"What did he go as?" Saitou asked, already grinning, knowing he was going to enjoy it.

And his Chiisai did not disappoint:

"James Bond," she said with a mischievous grin.

"You had him in a _tuxedo_?" Saitou asked, laughing. "He must've been pissed!"

"He hated me the whole night," she agreed, looking pleased with herself. "Especially since I kept sending girls over his way the whole night, telling them he was available and wasn't he just _dashing_ in his tux?"

"You're evil." he said, still laughing.

"I wasn't going to just let him dress me up like a hooker and get away with it," she said mildly.

"Naturally," he said, still chuckling. He eyed the photo, then smirked up at her. "Though I think I'll have to thank him."

She rolled her eyes.

"Pervert," she muttered.

"Absolutely," he agreed, running a hand up and down her thigh, very glad that she hadn't changed out of her dress yet. "So you're how old here?"

"Six months shy of eighteen," she said.

"Jailbait, huh?" he mused. "You're lucky I didn't know you then—no way I would have left you alone."

"You were married," she archly reminded him.

"Hooker boots make a man do strange things," he matter-of-factly replied, and she laughed.

"You're a sick man, ahou," she teased, leaning over and kissing him.

He set the photo aside and dragged her down on top of him, quite enjoying having her there. And she seemed content to be there, at least for a while. Because after a few minutes, she asked,

"Hajime?"

"Hm?"

"If I asked you a serious question, would you answer honestly?"

He paused, not liking the sudden turn of the evening. He quickly went over everything he'd done in the last 24 hours, wondering if he'd done something he shouldn't have, but couldn't come up with anything.

"Yeah," he said warily; just because he couldn't remember didn't mean something hadn't happened.

"If we had met then, would you have really tried to pick me up?"

Huh. Not quite what he'd been expecting.

Then again, she was good at throwing him curve balls.

…Oh _gods_, he was starting to sound like Okita, that baseball-obsessed _freak_.

"Yeah," he said after a short, surprised pause.

"Really?" she asked, looking a little troubled by his honesty.

"Yeah."

"Would you have told me you were married?"

"Nope."

She watched him, obviously not knowing what to make of his answers. He decided to explain himself, even though part of him thought this was a dumb conversation that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, because they hadn't met when she was 17, they'd met when she was 19.

"Look, Chiisai," he began, "part of the secret to keeping me happy is not nagging me too much. Unfortunately for me, Yaso either couldn't figure that out or didn't care, so when I came home or called home, I had to listen to her bitch about all the things that needed to be done. Yeah, she didn't know what was going on and what I was doing, but still. It was never, 'Oh I'm so happy you're here'—it was more like 'Fix the leaky faucet in the kitchen that's been driving me crazy for the past three months, you lazy asshole,' and I don't respond very well to that particular form of persuasion. The fact that she could have asked her brothers for help with half of the shit she wanted me to do when I got home didn't really help. I mean, usually that kinda shit woulda pissed me off, but when I went home, I didn't wanna be dickin' around with faucets and stuck closet doors and light bulbs in weird places that needed changing. I had one week to be home with her, and she wanted me to do a bunch of shit that she could have done herself if she were just a little more independent, or have gotten one of her asshole brothers to do, since they thought the sun shined outta her ass. And for some reason the fact that I only got one week at home every six months, and then every three, didn't seem to get through to her.

"So absolutely, I would've tried to pick you up in a heartbeat. Because you were—and still are—hot as hell, and you wouldn't have wanted me to fix a leaky faucet, which would have been huge points in your favor, by the way."

"Did you cheat on her?" Tokio asked quietly.

"No," he said patiently, "I didn't meet you until later, remember?"

"I'm being serious."

"So am I." he replied. "The opportunity never presented itself, all right?"

She looked dubious, and he sighed.

"Look, Tokio, it's _really_ easy to keep me happy. Just keep doing what you've been doing, and you'll never be able to get rid of me."

She eyed him.

"Yeah?" she asked finally.

"Yeah."

"Hm," she decided on after a few moments of eyeing him.

"Don't tell me I'm in trouble for being honest," he said incredulously.

"You aren't," she assured. "One more question, okay?"

"Shoot."

"Did you love her?"

…This night just got more and more interesting, honestly.

"Okay babe, go with me on this one…I don't think I would've married her if I hated her guts."

"That doesn't answer the question," she pointed out.

"Sure it does," he said, and he wasn't being deliberately obtuse because when it came to things like marriage, he didn't believe in shit like "the middle ground."

He was an extremist like that.

And, you know, in other ways too.

"You don't have to love someone to marry them," she said.

He raised one eyebrow in disbelief.

"Okay, where are _you_ getting your definition from?" he asked.

"I'm serious, Hajime."

"So am I. Who the hell told you that? 'Cause they have some seriously fucked up priorities. I mean…fuck, I'm cynical, but not _that_ cynical."

She smiled faintly.

"So you loved her?"

"Yes, woman," he said impatiently.

"Did she know that?"

"Well she ought to have," he muttered. "Not like I hid it or anything."

Her smile widened.

"Did you ever think that maybe she wasn't as good at reading you as I am?" she asked.

"I know she wasn't, or she would've figured out that I didn't wanna get into stupid fights over the laundry with her," he said, and she stared at him.

"You guys used to fight about the _laundry_?" she asked after a moment.

"Sometimes," he hedged.

She sighed.

"You know, it isn't all her fault," she said, playing with his hair again.

"Are you _defending_ my ex-wife?" he asked after a moment, not sure he'd heard correctly—in fact, he wasn't entirely sure he was really awake.

Had he fallen asleep and this was all just some tremendously insane dream he was having?

"I guess I am," she said after thinking it over.

"_Why_?"

She shrugged.

"I have the advantage of knowing things about you that she didn't," she replied. She sent him an amused look. "Plus, I don't think you're ready to be completely fair."

"See what you say when you've been nagged at for six years," he muttered churlishly.

"You're like a little kid," she said, nuzzling his cheek. "Except instead of remembering every good thing that ever happened to you while you were married to Yaso-san, you remember all the bad things."

"There aren't a lot of good things to remember," he said, then thought about that, surprised he'd said it.

"That's sad," she decided, smoothing his hair back.

He was inclined to agree.

"Know whose fault that is?" she asked.

"Mine?" he guessed, and she smiled and leaned her cheek against her fist.

"No," she said, an oddly fond look on her face. "At least, not completely. Because you should have told her you weren't happy sooner, and she should have done the same thing. You can't very well work things out between you if neither one of you broaches the subject, now can you?"

"No."

"Good boy." she cooed, pinching his cheek the way his aunt used to when he was a kid…wait a minute, she still did that.

"Oi."

"Hm?"

"What the hell's the point of getting marriage counseling now about something that's been over for almost eight years?"

"History repeats itself if you aren't careful," she said mysteriously.

"Tokio, you _always_ tell me when I piss you off," he said in exasperation.

"I know," she said, "and you do the same. I just thought I'd remind you about that, that's all."

"Did you smoke some really good pot?" he asked suspiciously.

She closed her eyes and sighed, smiling in amused exasperation.

"Just say 'Yes Tokio'."

He considered her, then decided it was easier to just do what she wanted (he could always trick her into getting a drug test done if this bizarre behavior continued).

"Yes Tokio," he obediently repeated.

"Thank you," she said, opening her eyes. "Now I think we should go to sleep."

"Sleep, or _sleep_?"

She shook her head.

"I'm seriously starting to wonder if that's normal, Hajime."

"You like it."

"Hm…yeah," she decided, and he grinned.

"All right Chiisai, bedtime," he said, hooking a finger into her collar. "Outta the dress."

"You're a pervy old man," she informed him.

"Just say 'Yes Hajime'," he instructed, and she laughed.

"Yes Hajime."

"Now that's more like it."

A thought occurred and he grinned:

"Oi, Tokio."

"Hm?"

"If I asked real nice, would you call some of your eagle friends?"

To which her response was to grab her pillow and try to smother him with it.

Not that he minded—after all, her "eagle friends" were a shit ton more embarrassing for her than his being accused of being a pervert was for him.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chpt 37: And Then, There Was Light…_

"We're gonna die," Enishi muttered sourly, hands shoved into his pockets.

"Well," Kamatari said brightly, smoothing down the front of his chic suit, "at the very least, we'll go out looking _fabulous_."

Tokio, Enishi and Tomoe glared at him.

"What?" he asked, blinking.

"You're not helping," they said in flat, emphatic unison.

---

"I might as well turn in my letter of resignation," Tokio mumbled.

Saitou eyed her, one eyebrow raised.

"Well aren't you a barrel of sunshine and rainbows tonight," he dryly remarked.

---

Tokio stared at them in a manner that, she was sure, made her look catatonic.

Or, possibly, mentally deficient—she couldn't quite figure out which was correct right that moment, not with Handel's _Hallelujah_ chorus currently playing through her head.

---

"So I guess this means no letter of resignation?" he dryly asked, and she sighed.

"You legitimately freak out over something _once_, and never hear the end of it," she muttered.

He laughed:

"_Once_? Chiisai, you need some ginkgo biloba."


	37. And Then, There Was Light

**MERRY HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!!**

Hope your holidays were enjoyable. And even if they weren't, that won't matter, because we're starting this year off right—with another chapter of _Captain Mis_.

Damn straight.

**Also: TODAY IS SAITOU'S BIRTHDAY.** Happy Birthday Saitou!

Enjoy, you guys!!

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

uhm…nothing you all don't already know (could be wrong, though).

More Of A Note Than Anything:

pizza in Japan: …is _not_ your average pie. In fact, it bears little resemblance to pizza as it is known in the US, for example (still interested? Visit Mr. Billy Hammond's "Pizza in Japan" page at http:(double backslash)tanutech(dot)com(backslash)japan(backslash)jpizza(dot)html; it's a short article, or else I'd have paraphrased it). It's very popular in Japan with the younger set. It's also on the expensive side, so it's not something you want to buy all willy-nilly all the time.

ginkgo biloba: a tree with a long history (seriously), it is today primarily known for its supposed memory and concentration-enhancing properties. There is debate, however, on whether ginkgo actually does anything for one's memory. Until there is conclusive evidence stating otherwise, though, health food stores and the like are content enough to market ginkgo as a supplement to boost one's cognitive abilities.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Thirty-Seven: And Then, There Was Light…**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

A week later found Tokio pacing back and forth in the conference room at Mifune's office suite in Shinjuku Ward, waiting for the men representing the city of Kyoto to arrive.

Not that they were late—they weren't. Tokio was just early.

Very early.

So early, in fact, that she'd beat the secretary and had had to wait for the woman's arrival to be let in.

She wasn't the only one who'd been nervous about this meeting; Enishi had picked her up at the apartment this morning, Tomoe and Kamatari already in the back of his car. The Yukishiro siblings looked exhausted; Kamatari looked irritated that he'd been dragged out of bed so early.

Actually, Kamatari was irritated because he really shouldn't have been there, the head curator should have. But as there was no head curator anymore (what with Nakajima fired and pending a criminal trial, and Kurosagi suspended for an indefinite amount of time while his part, if any, in Nakajima's plot was determined), Tokio needed someone to fill the spot, and she'd chosen Kamatari because she trusted him.

Not that her trust had in any way changed his thoughts on the whole thing, or at all ingratiated her with him for the stunt:

"You're lucky I love you," the disgruntled man muttered, arms crossed over his chest, as he glared balefully at Tokio.

She sent him a wide, hopeful smile.

"And it's because you love me that you're doing this huge, huge, _huge_ favor for me, right Kamatari-chan?"

"No—it's because I love you that I'm refraining from strangling you," Kamatari snapped.

"Look," Tokio began with a sigh, "I'm sorry, Kamatari, but there was no one else!"

"The hell there wasn't!"

"No one I trust as much as I trust you!"

"Well couldn't you trust me a little fucking less, so I didn't have to get up at 3 a.m.?!"

"_3 a.m._?" Enishi asked, sounding incredulous. "Why the fuck would you need to get up at _3 a.m._, you _freak_?"

Kamatari sent him a disdainful look.

"It takes a lot of hard work to look as good as I do, or do you think this comes naturally?" he replied haughtily, gesturing to himself with both hands, and Enishi rolled his eyes.

"Oh gods deliver me," he muttered.

The drive to the office had been made with the usual insults between Enishi and Kamatari, with Tokio occasionally playing referee, and also fighting the urge to call Saitou for moral support (as much as she wanted to hear him tell her everything would be all right, she didn't particularly want her staff to see or hear that, even if they were people she'd known almost her whole life). Tomoe alternated between playing backseat driver and taking over as referee when Tokio's nerves got the better of her, and she stopped paying attention.

All in all, it was possibly the least relaxing way to precede a legal throw down.

Enishi had found a decent parking spot (one that wouldn't put his car in danger), and they alighted from the vehicle.

"Ugh, it's so dark," Kamatari muttered as he slipped out of the car.

"Oh would you shut up?" Enishi irritably snapped, in the middle of helping his sister get out. "Fuck—all you've done so far this morning is bitch."

"This isn't morning," Kamatari replied. "It's glorified night."

"Guys, come on," Tokio said wearily from where she stood by the passenger door; Enishi had helped her out before going to his sister. "It's too early for this."

"He started it," Enishi said petulantly.

"Really, you two," Tomoe said in disapproval. "You're acting like babies instead of executives."

Kamatari pouted and wouldn't say anything else; Enishi just scowled and slammed the door shut harder than he really needed to; and Tokio sighed, grateful the bickering had stopped.

Usually she didn't mind, but today was hardly "usual."

The group, now much more subdued, walked to the building. Tokio, who had met with Mifune at his office before (a few former employees had tried to sue her for firing them, but nothing had ever come of the suits), didn't bother checking the directory in the lobby, and walked right up to the elevator, the others following behind her. Upon walking into the elevator, Kamatari made use of the mirrored walls, which had Enishi rolling his eyes and scowling. Tokio took one look at herself and winced, then decided she was better off watching the floor numbers change; good gods, how had Saitou let her leave the apartment looking so pale and awful?

"What's wrong with you?" Enishi asked.

"Nothing," she replied, eyes on the numbers. "I'm just going to have a long talk with Hajime when I get home about what constitutes 'good'."

"You look fine," Tomoe said quietly.

"Maybe a little tense, but we all look that way," Enishi added, and earned a frown from his sister. "What?" he asked, confused. "What'd I say?"

"It's okay, I know what he meant," Tokio said, waving a dismissive hand. "We're only going to the meeting that will make or break us."

"Feh—_only_," Enishi muttered, pushing his glasses up from where they'd slipped to perch at the very tip of his nose.

"Now, now—it's very serious, yes, but it isn't nearly as bad as all that," Tomoe reprimanded lightly.

Tokio bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying, "Actually, it _is_ as bad as all that—and _then_ some."

Probably wouldn't go over very well.

Plus, in a tiny elevator, there would be no escape from pesky questions like "What do you mean we'll be ruined if we don't get the Shinuchi?!" and "How could you do such a thing?!" and the like.

Instead, she said,

"Tomoe-san, we really need to get custody of the Shinuchi from Kyoto. The museum needs the boost. Badly."

"Well, what are our odds?" Tomoe asked, cocking her head, and Tokio let out a huge sigh that violently ruffled her bangs.

"Realistically? We have a better chance of being attacked by a shark in the middle of Ginza while simultaneously being struck by lightning."

Tomoe blinked.

"You're just making that up," she said after a beat.

"Oh I wish," Tokio muttered.

"That's ridiculous, Tokio-san," Tomoe said. "We'll do fine. We just have to have faith, that's all."

Her little brother did not share her optimism:

"We're gonna die," Enishi muttered sourly, hands shoved into his pockets.

"Well," Kamatari said brightly, smoothing down the front of his chic suit, "at the very least, we'll go out looking _fabulous_."

Tokio, Enishi and Tomoe glared at him.

"What?" he asked, blinking.

"You're not helping," they said in flat, emphatic unison, just as the doors to the elevator opened at the fourteenth floor.

Upon arriving at Mifune's office suite, they found the door locked, so they waited out in the hallway (and squabbled again over the ungodly hour they'd arrived at) until the secretary, who was horrified and astonished to find them there, arrived. She hurriedly allowed them into the suite, and promised them coffee and muffins, which got Kamatari's attention:

"Make sure there're at least three lemon poppy seed muffins, please," he said sweetly.

"Absolutely Honjou-san," the secretary assured, bowing low. "And please allow me to apologize again for not being here to greet you on Mifune-sensei's behalf—"

"It's all right," Tomoe assured.

"We're just impertinent and came before we were supposed to," Tokio added with a smile.

As soon as the secretary left, the door clicking shut behind her, Enishi threw himself down into a chair and yawned hugely.

"So we're impertinent, huh?" he asked Tokio, one eyebrow quirked.

"Enishi, sit up straight," Tomoe chided in soft reproach; her brother grumbled but did as she'd ordered.

"How else do you describe coming three hours before we're supposed to?" Tokio asked, tracing random shapes onto the gleaming wood of the conference table.

"Neurotic," Enishi replied.

"Nervous," Tomoe offered.

"Inconsiderate," Kamatari muttered as he seated himself next to where Tokio, who sent him an annoyed look when he spoke, was standing.

"For the last time, I'm sorry!" Tokio said, exasperated.

"Not sorry enough, in my opinion," Kamatari replied.

"Tokio-san," Tomoe cut in, "are you sure Saitou-san gave Mifune-sensei our donor's information?"

Tokio nodded. "He told me he had," she said. "He said it took Oki—ah, that is, it took his guy that he knows a long time to find the gentleman, but the guy found him. And Mifune-sensei called me to ask me to thank Hajime for him, so I have to assume everything was in order."

"But Mifune never said if he was able to contact our guy?" Enishi pressed, watching her over the rims of his glasses.

Tokio sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"No," she said heavily. "After that, I didn't hear from Mifune-sensei again, until his secretary called to set up this appointment."

Enishi sighed too, looking frustrated.

"Meeting with the legal counsel of the city of Kyoto," he muttered. "Sounds like bad news to me."

"It doesn't mean anything, other than that the lawyers want or need to meet with us," Tokio immediately said, her nerves getting a teensy tiny bit worse.

"When are Katsura-san and Takasugi-san arriving?" Kamatari asked, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear delicately.

"Soon, I think," Tokio replied, putting a hand to her knotted, queasy stomach.

The secretary soon returned with the promised coffee and muffins. Tokio nursed her cup, never taking a sip, because she was too nervous to, but didn't want to risk offending the secretary by not accepting it. So she was glad that Enishi—who drank far too much coffee for his own good, in Tokio's opinion—noticed she hadn't touched hers and asked,

"Mind if I take yours? Mine's gone."

"Go ahead," she said, handing it to him, and he accepted it.

"Did you eat anything this morning?" Kamatari asked her, frowning at Enishi, who shot him a bird while dumping another packet of sugar into Tokio's cup.

"Hajime made me drink some tea," she said with a nod, not adding that he'd had to threaten her into consuming it.

"That's not food," Tomoe pointed out, stirring her coffee idly.

"Well," Tokio said with a shrug.

"You should have a muffin," Kamatari said authoritatively.

"Tokio never eats when she's nervous, you know that," Enishi said lazily, sitting back in his seat and taking a sip of his coffee. "Once we're done here and she's not nervous anymore, she'll eat something."

"You'll faint," Kamatari muttered in disapproval.

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"I will not," she said irritably. "I have never fainted in my life, thank you very much."

"First time for everything," Enishi remarked, and Tokio sent him a nasty look.

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" she snapped.

"Devil's advocate," he informed her with a smirk.

She made a face at him, and he made one in return.

"You two are being very childish," Tomoe chided.

"We can be more childish," Enishi assured his sister.

"Yes, you can," Kamatari said dryly.

"I don't know _what_ you're talkin' about, Queen," Enishi said, pausing in his very mature and adult "I-can-make-a-more-ridiculous-face-at-you-than-you-can-at-me" contest with Tokio. "You're just as bad."

"Am not!" Kamatari said, offended.

"Are too," Tokio, Enishi and Tomoe said in unison.

Kamatari sniffed and turned up his nose at them and refused to reply. Enishi shrugged and went back to making faces at Tokio; Tomoe shook her head, a small smile playing around her lips.

The door opened and Mifune walked in to find two of his clients making faces at each other and stopped. The group at the table noticed his presence nearly immediately and scrambled to their feet, Tokio and Enishi looking sheepish.

"Mifune-sensei!" Tokio said, cheeks red.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked, clearly not knowing what he was going to do if the answer was yes.

"No, of course not!" Tokio assured with a nervous laugh. "We were just…er…uh…you know…so how about this weather we're having?" she finished, voice small.

Enishi rolled his eyes, Kamatari slapped his forehead and Tomoe shook her head, sighing.

Thankfully, Mifune decided not to spend anymore time on the awkward beginning.

"I'm sure you're aware of this, Takagi-san, Kiyosato-san, Yukishiro-san, Honjou-san," he said, shutting the door behind him softly, "but you are rather early for our appointment."

"Yes," Tokio said sheepishly, feeling like a scolded child. "Would you believe me if I told you we were all dying of nerves?"

Mifune smiled grimly.

"Quite," he assured.

"Oi, Mifune," Enishi said, ignoring the frown Tomoe sent him at the lack of honorific, "Tokio says you never called her to let her know if you'd gotten a hold of our dude or not. Did you?"

Mifune sighed and rubbed his forehead, and Tokio felt dread settle heavily in the pit of her stomach.

"No," he said finally, confirming her worst fears. "Saitou-san's information was very detailed, but the gentleman has remained rather elusive, I'm afraid."

"But," Kamatari asked, sounding stunned, "but don't we need him here today?"

"It would be easier if he were here," Mifune said diplomatically, "but his presence is not required. We have records to indicate that he is indeed related to Arai-sensei, which will go a long way toward helping bolster our claim to the Shinuchi. Unfortunately, because we have been unable to contact the gentleman, we do not have his testimony. So we have no idea how he came into possession of the Shinuchi, or why he decided to donate it to your museum."

"That's bad, isn't it?" Tokio asked despondently.

Mifune hesitated.

"Don't lie to us," Enishi said quietly. "Is it?"

Mifune sighed.

"It could hurt us," he admitted finally. "You all understand that the circumstances surrounding the Shinuchi's disappearance are very suspect. The city will not hesitate to discredit our claim, if they want the Shinuchi back badly enough."

Tokio bowed her head, disappointment swimming through her. Kyoto wanted the Shinuchi badly enough, all right—who wouldn't have wanted to claim the right to Arai Shakkuu's magnum opus? It would be the single greatest boon, for whoever ended up with it, in history. And while they had the weight of the Kiyosato name behind them, recent events had slightly undermined that weight. Kyoto, on the other hand, had had no such unfortunate luck.

She felt Enishi's big hand settle on one of her shoulders and squeeze. Tokio sighed quietly—no use for it. If they had to go down, so be it, but they'd go down swinging.

She looked up at Mifune, smiled and bowed.

"Thank you Mifune-sensei. We appreciate your candor. Please try your best." she said.

Mifune smiled faintly, sadly.

"Of course, Takagi-san," he replied, also bowing. "The representatives from the city should be here in two hours. Please, make yourselves comfortable. Do not hesitate to ask for anything."

Tokio nodded, and Mifune took his leave of them. It was quiet in the conference room for a long time, and then Tokio sighed and turned to face her staff.

Enishi was watching her with a guarded expression; the two of them were still, incredibly, hiding things from Tomoe and Akira. They were the only ones who really knew how badly the museum needed the Shinuchi, and how much losing it could cost them.

Kamatari and Tomoe just looked worried. Tokio knew that if either had known the true state of things, they'd have been horrified by the odds.

"Well," she said. "We've got quite a meeting ahead of us."

"Meeting?" Enishi asked, raising an eyebrow as he used his middle finger to nudge his glasses down the bridge of his nose. "Don't you mean showdown?"

"How barbaric," Kamatari remarked with a wrinkle of his nose.

"We aren't going to duel," Tomoe agreed, frowning.

Enishi and Tokio exchanged a speaking look.

_Oh if they only knew_, their darkly amused gazes said to each other.

"Really now," Tomoe murmured, sitting down again. "I'd expect the gloom-and-doom from Enishi, Tokio-san, but hardly from you. Especially not after you've spent so much time chiding everyone else about it."

Tokio smiled thinly.

"I guess this mess we're in is sapping my reserves," she said, only half kidding.

Tomoe inclined her head in a gesture of acknowledgement.

"I suppose that wouldn't be completely unfounded. Sometimes I forget how much of this I've missed, while I was taking care of Akira."

_And you still don't know the half of it_, Tokio thought with dark humor.

"Ugh, Tomoe-san's right," Kamatari said, sending Tokio and Enishi displeased looks. "You're acting an awful lot like Enishi-chan, kitten."

"What the _fuck_ have I said about calling me that, you fruitcake?!" Enishi bellowed, making a move to grab the smaller man.

Tokio grabbed Enishi by his shirt collar and yanked him back, while Kamatari moved to safer territory—that is, he scrambled to stand beside Tomoe, who looked scandalized.

"Yukishiro Enishi!" she said. "Please remember your surroundings! What would Mifune-sensei say if he heard you?"

"I doubt he'd be surprised, honestly," Tokio replied dryly. "Heel, boy," she couldn't resist adding, and Enishi glared balefully at her over his shoulder.

"I hate you," he said darkly.

"I know," she replied. "If I let go of you, will you promise to not try to kill Kamatari?"

"Feh," was his reply, and Tokio rolled her eyes but let him go, knowing it was as close to yes as she was likely to get.

Enishi straightened his collar as soon as she let go, muttering under his breath about her and "the Queen" and how they were in cahoots against him.

The room in general ignored him.

Tokio sighed and plopped back down into her chair, head propped up by her hands. Dread was beginning to bubble up in her, worse than before, and she was starting to get that urge to call Saitou again. It was more insistent now, and after a moment, she decided to give in.

"I'll be back," she said, rising and taking hold of her purse.

"Are you going to throw up?" Enishi asked, still looking annoyed, but concern beginning to show on his features.

"Want me to go with you?" Kamatari offered, already getting up to accompany her.

"No, I'm fine," she assured. "I just need to use the facilities, that's all."

"Tokio," Enishi and Kamatari said warningly, in unison.

"I'm not gonna throw up you crazies!" she insisted, exasperated. "Geez."

"If you're not back in five minutes I'm coming in after you," Kamatari warned—or rather, threatened.

"Leave Tokio-san alone, you two," Tomoe chided. "No one is going after anyone. Go on, Tokio-san."

Tokio bobbed her head and sent Tomoe a grateful look, then left the conference room and started for the restroom.

For someone who had never been optimistic a day in his life, Saitou had a surprising talent for making her feel better. Like last night—she'd been laying face down on the bed, dreading the meeting with the Kyoto reps in a despondent tone of voice. He'd been sitting next to her, chin in hand, watching her with his patented "You're-being-retarded" expression on his face.

"We're going to die," she informed the comforter.

"You're not going to die," he said patiently.

"We're going to be eviscerated," she said, ignoring him because the man _clearly_ had no idea what he was talking about. "There won't be anything left."

"I'm pretty sure they can't kill you, Tokio," he said sarcastically.

"Oh shut up," she ordered, turning her head just enough to send him a blistering one-eyed glare. "What do you know about it, anyway?"

"Murder's illegal," he replied, and she let out an irritated sigh.

"Idiot," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. "Why do you have to take everything so literally?"

"You know you're acting completely stupid, right?" he asked.

The fact that he was being so blasé about it pissed her off. She couldn't believe that Mr. Gloom-and-Doom Himself, Mr. Pessimism Personified, wasn't joining her in making dire predictions about tomorrow. He'd been there from the start, after all, and he knew how bad things were…well, not entirely. But he was certainly far better informed on the state of things than either Kamatari or Tomoe were. It was fine and dandy for them to be saying tomorrow wasn't going to suck as bad as Tokio thought, because they didn't know. But he did. He did and he was being downright hopeful…in as much as he was capable of such a thing, anyway.

So she decided the only proper course of action was to ignore him and his disgusting, newly-found positivism.

It figured the one time she wanted him to be brutally realistic he refused to be…the bastard.

"I might as well turn in my letter of resignation," Tokio mumbled.

Saitou eyed her, one eyebrow raised.

"Well aren't you a barrel of sunshine and rainbows tonight," he dryly remarked.

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and sent him an annoyed look.

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Hajime?" she demanded.

"More delusional than usual tonight, too," he added.

"Nice try, imposter—what'd you do with him? Is he lying in a ditch somewhere?"

He eyed her, then slowly said,

"I'm definitely going to start getting your urine tested regularly."

"Hajime-oji?" Eiji appeared in the doorway of their bedroom. "Can we play now? I set up the game already," he added, referring to his PS2.

"Not right now, Tokio's being crazy," Saitou said nonchalantly. "Once she stops we'll play."

"I am _not_ being crazy," she snapped. "_You're_ being stupid."

"I'm not the one freaking out over nothing," he replied.

"We're going to die tomorrow!" she yelled at him, and he winced. "That's not 'freaking out over nothing,' you ass!"

"You're gonna die tomorrow, Tokio-oba?" Eiji asked, looking worried.

"No she isn't, she's just being crazy," Saitou said. "Don't pay attention to her."

"I hate you," she muttered, making to get up to go take a shower and both wallow in her misery alone and sulk because he wasn't taking her worries seriously.

Instead, he sighed, rolled his eyes and reached over and hooked an arm around her and dragged her into his side.

"Look crazy," he said, exasperated, "you'll be fine tomorrow. You trust Mifune, right?"

"But Kyoto's got a better claim than we do!" she whined, pouting, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"So what?" he replied. "If Mifune's half as good as you say he is, you'll win and Kyoto'll just have to deal. Claim doesn't count for shit when you've got a good lawyer. Trust me, I see it happen all the time. 's why I hate lawyers."

Her pout intensified; Eiji came into the room, clambered up on the bed and hugged her.

"I bet you totally spank Kyoto, Tokio-oba," the boy said, and Tokio burst out laughing.

"Thank you Eiji-kun," she said, ruffling his hair.

He looked up at her and grinned, then hugged her again, before letting go of her and looking over at Saitou.

"Can we play now?"

"Still bein' crazy, crazy?" Saitou asked her, tugging gently on a lock of her hair.

She sighed.

"You think tomorrow'll be okay?" she asked seriously.

"Duh," he said, rolling his eyes. "When am I wrong, woman?"

She smirked and sent him a dry look:

"Shall I count them all or just the really big ones?"

He glared at her.

"I hope you break a heel tomorrow," he muttered.

She shrugged his arm off of her.

"Mean," she accused, getting up and leaving the room to go to the bath room.

She did feel slightly better. Despite her teasing, it really was rare for Saitou to be wrong (something which irritated her to no end and which she knew for a fact contributed to his inflated self-worth), and his completely confident statement that all would work out in her favor did a lot towards improving her mood. And before Enishi had picked her up this morning, he'd again assured her that everything was going to be fine, she was just worrying for nothing, now drink your damn tea before I make you.

She only hoped having to assuage her worries for a third time wouldn't irritate Saitou overly—she was aware that the man only had so much patience, and she didn't need to get into a fight with him right before she had to face the Kyoto reps.

She reached the restroom and took out her cell phone and went through her contacts until she found his office number, then hit the call button and gnawed nervously on her bottom lip until she heard,

"Yeah?"

"Hajime?" she asked cautiously; he sounded vaguely annoyed.

"Tokio?" he asked, sounding confused. "Where are you?"

"Mifune-sensei's office," she replied.

"Oh. Did you have the meeting already?"

"No, not for another two hours."

There was a long pause.

"Do you mean to tell me you left home _four_ hours before you were supposed to?" he incredulously asked. "What drugs are you people on?!"

"We're nervous and we wanted to be here early!" she protested.

"By _four_ hours?!"

"_Hajime_," she whined, and he sighed.

"Tokio, this is really getting ridiculous."

"I know! I just…Mifune-sensei gave us some bad news," she said, the urge to cry rising in her.

"What?"

"He hasn't been able to reach Arai-sensei's descendant, even with the information you found for him. And we really need him here to explain how the Shinuchi ended up at the museum—specifically whether it was through legitimate means or not. Without his side of the story, our claim is shaky."

Saitou was quiet for several moments. Then, she faintly heard a squeak somewhere in the background, as if he was leaning back in his chair.

"Mifune couldn't get a hold of the guy, huh?" he asked, sounding pensive.

"No. And with the meeting two hours away…Hajime, I don't think today's going to turn out very well for us."

"It isn't over yet," he said mildly. "You've still got two hours, Chiisai, and a lot can happen in two hours."

Tokio snorted.

"Unless this guy shows up a second before the meeting starts, I'm pretty sure we're boned."

On the other end, Saitou chuckled.

"I think we spend too much time round each other, Tokio—you're starting to sound a lot like me."

"Hajime, this is not good—"

"Calm down," he ordered idly. "Take a deep breath and stop freaking out. Look, babe, you guys've had good luck so far—"

"Luck runs out," she interrupted.

"True," he conceded. "But I'm pretty sure yours hasn't."

"And what makes you say that?" she grumbled, leaning back against the wall.

"Oh, just a feeling I get," he said mysteriously, sounding very amused. "Now do me a favor and meditate or something. Okay?"

She sighed.

"I guess," she murmured. Pause. "Hajime? You really think it'll all work out?"

"Sure," he said easily, tone lazily confident.

She let out a long, shuddering breath and closed her eyes.

"Okay," she said quietly.

"Atta girl," he said approvingly. "Go get some tea, take a walk, torment Yukishiro—whatever'll help you stop bein' crazy."

She pouted.

"Jerk face," she mumbled.

"This jerk face is right and you know it, so there."

"I hope Okita-san makes you miserable," she said, and he sighed wearily.

"Oh shut up," he muttered, and she smiled faintly, knowing her ill wish had already come true, possibly the second Okita had shown up that morning.

They went back and forth a little while longer before hanging up, and once she had, Tokio felt marginally better. Not as much as she'd felt last night, but at least the edge wasn't as keen as before and she could relax slightly more. She touched up her makeup and made sure she looked as presentable as possible, then returned to the conference room and endured both Enishi and Kamatari's fussing over her with surprisingly good grace.

In the end, she decided that there was nothing she could do. This was out of her hands, and the best she could hope for was that Mifune would be able to broker them a deal. And if he couldn't…well, she was just going to have to shoulder the blame on this one. She didn't think Akira or Tomoe would allow the Board to fire her, but she had no doubt they would call for her to be demoted to some administrative position much lower down on the totem pole. Then again, Akira might be mad enough at her for keeping things from him that he would fire her.

And for some reason, the idea that she might be out of a job after today made her nerves disappear. In fact, she was downright serene.

Enishi noticed the change first and after watching her with a frown for several moments, pulled out his cell phone and began fiddling around with it. A few seconds after he stopped, her own cell phone vibrated in her purse, and she pulled it out and found a text message waiting for her from him:

_whats up with you?_

She calmly replied:

_i have accepted my fate._

_o.O_ _…which is?_

_my life as ive known it for the past 8 or so yrs is officially over after today._

Upon reading that, Enishi looked alarmed.

_whats that supposed to mean?_

_it means that if i still have a job at the end of today itll be a miracle._

She hadn't thought it was possible for the white haired man to get anymore agitated.

Oh well. She'd been wrong before.

_WHAT THE HELL?!?_ he wrote back.

_calm down enishi_, she replied. _ill take care of everything all right?_

_you cant be fired you dumb bitch--stop thinking like that!_

_odds are looking good for that possibility asshole._

_then id be fired with you!_

_no you wouldnt all my fault._

_fucking martyr wannabe--stop being stupid tokio. akira would resign before he fired you and you know it._

_then ill resign so he wont have to._

"Stop being such a dumb shit!" Enishi bellowed at her upon reading her last text message, effectively scaring the crap out of both Kamatari and Tomoe, who had been discussing the new PR campaign; Tomoe jerked so hard it was a wonder she didn't hurt herself, and as for Kamatari, he flinched so violently he nearly knocked the table over.

"What the hell are you yelling about now, you savage?!" Kamatari snapped, annoyed, sending Enishi one of his more impressive glares.

Tokio sat back in her seat placidly, knowing Enishi wasn't going to tell the effeminate man (or his sister, for that matter) what they'd been discussing, because that would only lead to questions that he'd be unable to answer without admitting his own complicity. And even if the fallout from this ordeal ended up being less serious than he and Tokio were expecting, neither of them could afford full disclosure.

Not if they wanted to keep their jobs.

As she'd known would happen, Enishi only sent Kamatari an ugly look before snapping back that nothing was wrong, he should mind his own fucking business. Which prompted Tomoe to once again scold him about his foul mouth. Enishi submitted to the scolding sourly, and promised not to let it happen again (at least not within earshot of Mifune and his staff). Once Tomoe and Kamatari resumed their previous conversation, Enishi scooted his chair over to Tokio's side.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he hissed, glaring at her.

"Enishi, don't you understand what's going to happen here today?" she asked quietly. "We're not going to win. We're going to have to give up the Shinuchi to Kyoto."

"You don't know that," he whispered furiously.

"Stop being an idiot," she snapped, careful not to raise her voice. "Look stupid, our claim is questionable at best. Sure, our donor's a descendent of the man who made the thing, but it was a gift to the city of Kyoto that remained in their possession for almost 100 years before someone stole it. And then nearly 60 years after it disappeared, it pops up again in a little Tokyo museum that's been in possession of it for two decades without knowing what it was they had. Do you really think Kyoto's going to think it's a miraculous story and just leave it at that?"

"We have a shot—"

"No, we don't," Tokio interrupted. "We're going to lose the Shinuchi, Enishi. And when we do, everything you and I have been hiding for the past four months is going to come out. And who do you think is going to be blamed for that?"

"I helped," Enishi reminded her, sounding miserable.

"You weren't in charge," she said tiredly. "They won't touch you and you know it. But this is the golden opportunity the Board's been waiting for to oust my ass once and for all."

"Katsura and Takasugi wouldn't stand for it," Enishi pointed out.

"Enishi, they won't have a choice," Tokio replied. "And besides that, they're going to be pissed, to put it lightly, that I lied to them. I'd fire me too, if I was them, and then I'd make sure I could never get a decent job at a respectable place ever again."

"But they like you," he protested weakly, expression downright despondent.

She reached out and patted his hand.

"Not after today they won't," she said with dismal authority.

Nothing Enishi said could make Tokio think any differently about the outcome of the day's meeting, and he was visibly depressed by the time Katsura and Takasugi arrived, looking as tense and nerve-wracked as everyone else. Tomoe and Kamatari both noticed the change in Enishi's mood and the one in Tokio's. Tomoe couldn't get her brother to tell her what was wrong; Kamatari's interrogation of Tokio gleaned even less information than Tomoe's interrogation of Enishi, if that possible.

In due time the Kyoto representatives arrived and the meeting began. There were six of them, all dressed in the same severe fashion—upon seeing them, Kamatari wrinkled his nose and leaned over to Tokio and murmured,

"They look like morticians."

Tokio smiled faintly and murmured back,

"How appropriate."

Kamatari sent her an odd look but didn't say anything else.

Mifune let the Kyoto representatives go first. As Tokio had been expecting, they were respectfully unsympathetic, and asked for the immediate return of the Shinuchi to its rightful home. Enishi almost caused a riot when he bitterly interrupted and snapped that the Shinuchi's home had burned down 60 years ago. He (and Takasugi, who was backing him up) and one of the attorneys representing Kyoto went back and forth, the words exchanged becoming increasingly vitriolic, until Katsura and Mifune were able to stop the meeting from degenerating any further.

Once Mifune got the meeting back on track and presented the museum's side of the affair, things quickly became a matter of Kyoto's word against the museum's. Legally speaking, Kyoto had the advantage. The museum had evidence to support their claim, but it was circumstantial at best and Kyoto's attorneys were quick to both point that out and rip holes into it.

Things were starting to look bad, as bad as Tokio had predicted…until Mifune's young associate Ito burst through the doors looking harried, panting.

"I got him!" he triumphantly informed the room at large, then moved aside to reveal a rather dotty looking old fellow standing behind him. "May I present Arai Shakkuu-sensei's descendent and the man who donated the Shinuchi to the museum, Yamanaka Inori-san."

The room was dead silent as they stared at the doorway in shock—even the Kyoto representatives, thus far obnoxiously confident, looked at a loss.

That was the least of her concerns, however. At first she'd been convinced this was a dream, which given the amount of stress she'd been under wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility. But the longer the silence went on, the more she began to think that this couldn't be a dream, because she'd never had a dream that was so incredibly drawn out before in her life. Repetitive, yes. But this drawn-out silence was sort of boring, and her dreams were sometimes weird, sometimes oddly plausible, but never boring.

It was about that point that it slowly dawned on her what had just happened, and just who it was exactly that was standing in the doorway next to Ito.

Tokio stared at them in a manner that, she was sure, made her look catatonic.

Or, possibly, mentally deficient—she couldn't quite figure out which was correct right that moment, not with Handel's _Hallelujah_ chorus currently playing through her head.

After several more beats of silence, the room exploded into delayed chaos: the Kyoto representatives leapt up out of their seats and all began talking together in outraged confusion. Tomoe slumped down in her seat, looking faint. Kamatari continued to stare at the doorway, shell-shocked. A slow, triumphant smile bloomed onto Enishi's face as he watched the doorway. Katsura and Takasugi, clearly thrown for a loop by the turn of events, even if it was in their favor, tried to help Mifune restore order. Mifune himself was obviously rattled, which Tokio had never seen in her life, and which only added to the generally surreal feeling to the world around her.

_There's no way this is actually happening_, she thought, even as the hope she'd believed had flat lined long ago suddenly revived, and with a vengeance.

Eventually, order was restored, and Yamanaka Inori was seated at the table.

"Good morning Yamanaka-san," Mifune said. "Please forgive the initial reaction from the room at large—your appearance was quite unexpected."

"That makes two of us, then," the old man said, looking vaguely peevish. "I was accosted by some loud-mouthed hooligan at the airport just before I was to board a plane to visit my niece."

Mifune raised an eyebrow and sent Ito a reproachful look. Yamanaka caught it and snorted.

"Not him," he assured. "This boy here has been the epitome of decorum. This was some other idiot. All but kidnapped me!"

"How in the wor—you mean _no one_ stopped him?" Tomoe asked, horrified.

"No—apparently, the fake MPD uniform convinced people there was no need for interference."

Tokio's eyes narrowed, and she and Kamatari and Enishi exchanged suspicious looks—idiot in an MPD uniform…?

"What makes you think the uniform was fake, sir?" Kamatari asked.

"The MPD wouldn't have hired someone so moronic," Yamanaka assured, completely confident in this belief.

"Wanna bet?" Enishi muttered, rolling his eyes.

"What was that?" Katsura asked, curious.

"I said 'Not quite yet'," Enishi calmly returned.

"Enishi!" Tomoe snapped, appalled. "That's a terrible thing to say!"

"What?" he asked, shrugging. "'s what I said."

"And in front of Tokio-san, too," Tomoe continued, her disapproval plain in her voice.

"I know he didn't mean it," Tokio hurried to assure.

_Not to mention I agree with him, to a certain extent_, she silently added.

Mifune coughed politely into his fist and brought attention back to him.

"Perhaps, now that all parties involved are present, we can continue?" he suggested.

Tokio suddenly felt excited.

Things had taken a turn in their favor, and their luck was still good.

Or rather, she thought with more than a little amusement, _her_ luck was still good.

Due, she knew with complete certainty, to a certain "Idiot Brigade" in Bunkyo Ward under the command of a certain chain-smoking jerk face who had just earned himself major points with her.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Now this was odd: it was eight forty-eight, and Tokio had yet to come home.

Saitou pursed his lips and wondered what that meant. He couldn't quite decide on whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

He also couldn't quite decide on whether he was annoyed and worried or not.

He and the boy had been home for several hours now, and he was currently standing before the open fridge, trying to decide what to make for dinner. If it had been up to him, he would have just made soba, but Tokio had threatened to kill him if he made soba again. He doubted she'd actually go through with it, but it was better safe than sorry, so he'd decided to strike that off the menu. The only problem with that, though, was that he didn't know how to make anything else.

"Where the fuck is she?" he muttered, frowning at the juice carton.

"What's for dinner?" Eiji asked from his seat at the table.

He was balancing his soccer ball (a gift from Tokio's parents two days ago that had made the kid spaz out worse than anything Saitou had ever seen in his life—and he'd been friends with an uber-spaz for basically his entire life) on his head. The Hachi the puppy was lying down on the floor under the boy's seat, placid and possibly asleep.

"Something," Saitou absently replied, eyes once more going to the clock—in time to see it change from eight forty-eight to eight-forty nine. "Where _the fuck_ is she?" he repeated more vehemently, slamming the fridge door shut.

"Call her cell," Eiji suggested, face the picture of concentration.

"_You_ call her cell," Saitou shot back—not one of his better (or more mature) comebacks to be sure, but he had more important things to worry about than his record of comeback dominance over his ten-year-old ward.

"You're the one all worried an' stuff," Eiji said with a vague note of rebellion in his voice.

"She shoulda been back by now," Saitou said, going to the pantry to consider his options, while studiously ignoring the soba staring him straight in the face.

"So call her cell an' yell at her like you always do."

Saitou slowly looked over his shoulder and sent the boy a nasty look.

"I do _not_ always yell at her," he said tightly.

Eiji snorted in amusement and smirked, though he wasn't looking at his guardian.

"Whatever Hajime-oji," he said smugly, clearly humoring the older man.

Saitou's eyes narrowed, and he decided that this affront could not pass with impunity.

The hell he'd let some snot-nosed brat patronize him.

So he walked over to the boy, reached out and snatched the ball off of his head.

"Oi!" Eiji shouted. "That's mine!"

"You aren't allowed to play with it in the apartment, brat," Saitou informed him, lifting it higher when the boy attempted to swipe it out of his grasp.

"You didn't care a second ago!" Eiji pointed out.

"You weren't being obnoxious until a second ago either," Saitou dryly replied with a speaking look.

Eiji glared at him.

"Jerk," he muttered.

Saitou sent him a malicious smirk:

"Set the table," he ordered, and Eiji groaned.

"_Why_?" he whined.

"Because you're obnoxious."

"You are too."

Saitou raised an eyebrow, then sent the boy a very pleased look that had Eiji groaning louder.

"You're setting it up proper tonight," the older man informed the boy as cheerfully as Saitou was capable of being.

Which was surprisingly cheerful, as a matter of fact. Maybe even scarily so.

…Actually, it was definitely scary.

Eiji got up from the table, grumbling under his breath about how unfair this was, and how Hajime-oji was a big, fat—

"What's that? Offering to do the dishes after dinner too?" Saitou asked mildly.

"No sir," Eiji muttered.

"Couldn't hear that. What did you say?"

"I said no sir," Eiji repeated, glaring mutinously up at him.

"Lose the attitude," Saitou ordered.

"Yes sir." The glare disappeared, though the pout was in full evidence. Still, that wasn't nearly as seditious as the glaring.

"Good. Now set the table."

It went without saying that if even one article was out of place, he'd make the kid redo the whole thing all over again from the top…_without_ telling him where he'd screwed up—he'd have to figure it out himself or set the table over and over and over again.

Saitou was nothing if not thorough in his torture.

Eiji went about his punishment in the usual fashion (this sort of thing happened pretty regularly), which involved a lot of scowling and pausing to think very very hard about every single piece he put down as his "final answer," so to speak. Saitou split his time between continuing his search for a dinner that wouldn't get him yelled at or killed, keeping an eye on the clock as it slowly made its way to nine, and supervising Eiji's efforts—to his disappointment, two of these three endeavors were not going in his favor at all.

And here he'd been hoping that at the very least he'd get some kind of satisfaction from giving his ward a hard time.

Eiji set the table flawlessly, and Saitou grudgingly let the boy sit down at the table again (he kept the ball just to be a dick, though). He supposed he should have expected him to figure it out eventually, but he'd been hoping to get a few more months, or at the very least _weeks_, of enjoyment out of watching the kid struggle.

Oh well—when you made someone repeat something often enough, you were bound to foster efficiency.

…Maybe he'd up the ante. Yeah, that sounded good—maybe put a time limit next time. And if the kid failed, he'd have to do the dishes. That last bit would ensure that he didn't speed up too quickly through repetition, which would mean Saitou would be able to enjoy making life difficult for Eiji for a little while.

Simple pleasures, simple pleasures.

It was several seconds after the clock had hit nine twelve that Saitou heard noise at the door. Eiji, who apparently also heard it, quit kicking his feet back and forth under his seat (good thing too, because the dog, hearing the same thing, opened his eyes and lifted his head) and looked over at the door. Saitou rose from where he'd been crouched down in front of the pantry and shut the door, which was as far as he got before the key turned in the lock and the door swung open and Tokio loudly and excitedly greeted,

"I'm home!"

"Welcome ho—" Saitou began, deciding to be pleasant before he began his interrogation, but a startled noise from Tokio, and then the sound of something suspiciously reminiscent of a body hitting the floor cut him off. "Tokio?" he asked, scrambling over to the door.

He found her sprawled in the entry, blinking and looking very surprised by her present state. She'd had a shit load of…_stuff_ in her hands that was now scattered all over the entry, not that it was a very big space.

Not to fall in, anyway.

"What the hell?" he asked, crouching down to help her up. "Walk much? New set of legs?"

"I tripped over something," she said, attempting, with his help, to maneuver herself into a position where actually getting up was feasible.

That was when Saitou saw the "something" she'd tripped over—Eiji's school bag.

He sent the boy a dark glare over his shoulder.

"What did I say about your bag?" he snapped.

"Oh stop, I'm fine," Tokio assured, finally able to get up. "See? No harm done."

"The bruises won't show up for another hour, at least," Saitou muttered, checking her over to make sure she was all right.

"Stop it," she chided, stooping over to start gathering up her things.

"Brat, help her," Saitou ordered, and Eiji shot over to the entry to do so.

"Sorry Tokio-oba," he said anxiously.

Tokio only grinned and yanked the boy into a hug.

"I'm not broken, sweetheart—like I said, no harm done." she cheerfully assured, ruffling his hair affectionately.

"He's still sorry and he's doing the dishes tonight to make up for it," Saitou said, arms crossed over his chest and glare still firmly in place.

Eiji didn't have time to react to that; Tokio sent Saitou a huge grin that had him raising an eyebrow.

"No one is washing a single dish tonight in this house," she announced.

"Oh?" Saitou cocked his head. "How's that?"

"We are going out tonight to celebrate," she said, her prior excitement returning.

"Celebrate what?" Eiji asked, puzzled—so puzzled that he had yet to extract himself from her arms.

"The museum is keeping the Shinuchi!" Tokio happily announced.

Saitou smirked, having already been expecting that news.

"Is that all, Chiisai?" he asked, amusement coloring his tone.

She sent him a pleased and amused look over Eiji's head.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. You don't look very surprised, Mr. Assistant Inspector—wonder why that is."

His only reply was a widening of the smirk he wore.

"What's the Shinuchi, Tokio-oba?" Eiji asked.

"The last masterpiece of a very famous swordsmith from way back when," Tokio explained. "We thought we weren't going to be able to keep it, but things went our way at the last minute and we're going to be able to."

"Oh. Is it important?" Eiji asked thoughtfully.

"Very," Tokio assured, ruffling his hair again.

"Oh. Okay—then congratulations, Tokio-oba."

"Thank you sweetheart," she cheerfully replied, hugging him again. "So, where do my boys want to eat out tonight?"

"Can we have pizza?" Eiji immediately asked.

"We can absolutely have pizza," Tokio said with a nod. She looked up at Saitou. "Pizza?"

"That's fine," he said, not really caring one way or the other—mostly, he was happy that he didn't have to magically pull dinner out of his ass anymore.

"Woo-hoo!" Eiji whooped, grinning broadly.

"Pick up your shit, boy," Saitou said, finally uncrossing his arms and slipping his hands into his pockets instead.

"Yes sir," Eiji chirped, giving Tokio a final squeeze before squirming out of her grasp to grab his bag and take it to his room.

Tokio smiled widely at Saitou, then went over to him and threw her arms around him.

"Thank you jerk face," she said, snuggling into his chest.

He obligingly wrapped his arms around her and gave her rear end an affectionate pat.

"So I guess this means no letter of resignation?" he dryly asked, and she sighed.

"You legitimately freak out over something _once_, and never hear the end of it," she muttered.

He laughed:

"_Once_? Chiisai, you need some ginkgo biloba."

"I was really happy with you until about a second ago," she warned.

"All right, all right," he said, amused, rubbing a hand up and down her back. "How'd you know I had a hand in your good luck, anyway?"

Tokio snorted and looked up at him.

"Yamanaka-san was apparently accosted and basically kidnapped by a loud-mouthed hooligan idiot, in an MPD uniform that he was convinced was fake, while at the airport."

"How do you know that wasn't exactly what happened?"

"Because you can tell Souji to go accost and kidnap people from airports and he'll do it," she replied with a grin, and he laughed.

"Well I have to keep the ahou occupied somehow, right?" he asked, leaning down to kiss her.

"Aww gross!" Eiji complained when he entered the main room again a few moments later. "Do you guys _have_ to do that _all the time_?"

"So don't look, then, if it bothers you so much," Saitou said

"Or maybe you guys could stop bein' so gross," the boy shot back.

Saitou sent him a warning look, but didn't get the chance to deliver his threat.

"That's enough you two," Tokio said, not sounding particularly exasperated. "Let's pick up the entry and then we can go, okay?"

"Okay," Eiji said, bounding forward to help her.

Saitou decided to let sleeping dogs lay and do as Tokio had suggested.

Better than getting into an argument with a kid.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Tokio insisted on paying for dinner, despite Saitou's arguing, and he eventually gave in because he didn't want to ruin her good mood.

After leaving the restaurant, they walked around for a while, and (surprise surprise) ended up at a playground, where Tokio then challenged Eiji to see who could swing the highest without dying. Saitou made himself comfortable on a nearby bench to smoke while watching their insane little contest. No one ended up winning, because both of them eventually lost interest in the contest and settled for just swinging and talking. About what, he had no idea, because he was too far away to make it out, but whatever it was, it was apparently _tremendously_ riveting.

Eventually, Saitou called out that it was a school night and they needed to get back, which put an end to the swinging and the conversation. Tokio attached herself to his side, and he draped an arm over her shoulders; Eiji took hold of Tokio's hand, and the three of them walked home with Tokio and Eiji singing some song that was popular now—as he didn't listen to the radio anymore, he was severely out of the loop when it came to…well, _everything_, really.

They went through the usual routine upon reaching the apartment, and once everyone had bathed and was in their sleepwear, Tokio broke out the plans Kamatari had scrawled out right after the meeting.

"You were working the rest of the day?" Saitou asked as he glanced over what appeared to be the Shinuchi's new exhibit.

"Furiously," Tokio said with a nod. "We decided we were going to open two different exhibits, so now everything has to be moved around to make room for that. We'll open the Meiji one first, and then the one dedicated to the Shinuchi. Kamatari has some beautiful ideas for that one—we were thinking of recreating the shrine it was originally gifted to."

"Ambitious," Saitou said. "I imagine you're going to be receiving Kyoto's help on that one?"

She nodded eagerly.

"They're going to send us as much information on the shrine as they can dig up," she confided.

Saitou thought that was extremely generous of the city, especially considering that the best they'd gotten was rights to the Shinuchi as intellectual property. Then again, they probably knew better than to bitch overly, and were grateful to get that much. From what Tokio had explained over dinner, now that the shrine was gone, the Shinuchi was technically the property of Arai Shakkuu's descendents—the deal had been that the Shinuchi remain with the shrine forever (how ever long that might be). Once it had burned down, the contract was void.

"When's it gonna open up?" Eiji asked, head cocked to one side as he sat on Saitou and Tokio's bed with them, watching Tokio, who was seated across from him.

"Don't know," she admitted. Then her grin widened. "But we're excited."

"I bet," Saitou said with a faint smile, pleased that he'd had a hand in making Tokio this deliriously happy.

"What about the Meiji one?" Eiji asked.

"We're going for April—actually, Tomoe-san planned it for the 15th, my birthday." Tokio added.

"Cool," Eiji decided.

"After the hell this exhibit has put us through, yes, very cool," she agreed with an emphatic nod that had Saitou snorting in amusement.

At twelve, Saitou announced that Eiji was going to be dead tomorrow and it was time for bed. The kid didn't put up any protest, and submitted to being tucked in; it was the one babyish thing he had yet to complain about. Then, he and Tokio turned in for the night.

"So was I right, or was I right?" Saitou asked, rubbing a hand up and down her arm.

"You were right," she murmured contentedly, nuzzling his neck.

"Damn straight I was," he said.

"Granted, there was tampering on your part to ensure that you stayed right," she began.

"Technicalities," he said nonchalantly, and she chuckled and kissed his neck.

"Thank you, Hajime," she said, voice sincere.

"You're welcome." He kissed her forehead. "Now unless you plan on thanking me again, time to go to sleep."

It took her a moment to realize that he didn't mean verbally, and then she sighed.

"You really are going to be a Super Pervert when you get older, aren't you?"

"Absolutely," he assured, patting her arm, and she sighed again.

"Tomorrow morning," she said, and it was quiet for a long moment as he lay there, surprised.

"Really?" he asked finally—she wasn't usually up for anything in the morning, when the possibility of Eiji hearing them grew exponentially for every second it took the sun to rise.

"Uh-huh."

Pause.

"See Chiisai, this is exactly what I was talking about when I said you were doing a great job keeping me happy."

"Lucky for me you're a simple old perv," she said, humor coloring her tone.

He didn't say a word in protest of her remark.

Mostly because it was true, to a certain extent (not the old part), but also because he was not about to make a big deal about something so miniscule.

Let it never be said that Saitou Hajime did not know when and how to choose his battles.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chpt 38: Of Sickness and Kung Fu_

"Saitou Hajime! I can't believe you showed that movie to a ten-year-old!"

"He didn't know who Bruce Lee was!" Saitou protested.

"That movie is completely inappropriate for Eiji!" Tokio shot back.

"Oi, I fast forwarded through the inappropriate parts," Saitou immediately defended.

---

At the end of the movie, both men looked over at Eiji to gauge his reaction. Eiji looked at first Saitou, then Okita, then looked back over at the screen.

"That was so _cool_," he said finally, and Okita cackled behind his mask.

"He's one of us!" he declared, and Saitou eyed him balefully.

"Why am I friends with you?" he muttered.

---

Oh he should have seen this coming a mile away.

Hell, _three_ miles away.

Saitou curled up into a miserable ball of diseased policeman on his side of the bed.

He was sick.

With the flu.

…_Son of a bitch_.

---

Eiji wrinkled his nose.

"You got Tokio-oba _knives_ for White Day?" he asked, tone disdainful.

Saitou sent him a black look:

"You just wait until I can move again," he muttered.


	38. Of Sickness and Kung Fu

**A/N:** Yo folks, how goes it? Happy Valentine's Day, those of you celebrating, and to those of you not, Happy Thursday, because, well, why not? Either way, you get another chapter of _Capt Mis_. _grins_.

Now then. There are 2 massive notes before the chapter, one in the Words To Watch Out For section, and one in the More Of A Note Than Anything section. You don't necessarily have to read the one in the "Words" section, but I would recommend reading the one in the "More Of " section, to avoid confusion later, especially if you're familiar with Bruce Lee's films.

**PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU ****DON'T**** READ IT AND THEN SEND ME A REVIEW/PM/ETC COMPLAINING THAT I FUCKED UP THE FILM TITLES, I'M GOING TO IGNORE YOU.**

…I'm just sayin'.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Jeet Kune Do (also known as Jeet Kun Do, JKD, and since 2004, Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do): translates as "the Way of the Intercepting Fist" (eh…more or less). I don't have the proper words to explain it, so I'll leave that up to Bruce Lee, JKD's founder, with help from Wikipedia: "_I have not invented a "new style," composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from "this" method or "that" method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see "ourselves". . . Jeet Kune Do is not an organized institution that one can be a member of. Either you understand or you don't, and that is that. There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune-Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way. Jeet Kune-Do is simply the direct expression of one's feelings with the minimum of movements and energy. The closer to the true way of Kung Fu, the less wastage of expression there is. Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive. Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back._"

Gung-Fu: according to the literature at my disposal, this is the (Cantonese) Chinese word for "Kung-fu."

More Of A Note Than Anything:

_The Big Boss_/_Fist of Fury_: Okay—stay with me on this one, 'cause it gets confusing. Older readers familiar with Bruce Lee's movies may know these 2 films in particular by other names: _Fists of Fury_ (i.e., _The Big Boss_) and _The Chinese Connection_ (i.e., _Fist of Fury_). When _The Big Boss_ was sent to its American distributor, the plan was to re-title it _The Chinese Connection_, to invoke a comparison to _The French Connection_, which had come out prior and involved, as _The Big Boss_ did, drug trafficking. _Fist of Fury_'s title was going to remain almost exactly the same, except for the addition of an extra "s" so that it would become _Fist__**s**__ of Fury_. But something happened between the import from China to the US, and the names got switched, so that _The Big Boss_ became _Fists of Fury_ and _Fist of Fury_ became _The Chinese Connection_. To this day, there is massive confusion between the two, although neurotic perfectionists (_points to self for reference_) refer to the 2 films by their original titles.

the (in)famous "saw-in-the-head" shot, _The Big Boss_: _The Big Boss_ was Bruce Lee's bloodiest movie, and this shot is the most famous shot to never make it to the mainstream cut. The print is said to be lost, but 2 screenshots remain, one from about a 45 degree angle and the other from the side, which is more gruesome and which the more adventurous may see on the Wikipedia page concerning _The Big Boss_; I've posted the link on my profile page for easy access.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Thirty-Eight: Of Sickness and Kung-Fu**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Kids were gross.

Especially when the kid in question was sick.

A particularly nasty-sounding sneeze had Saitou sending Eiji a grossed-out look through the doorway of the boy's room.

"Oi," he said, "stop gettin' snot everywhere."

The kid sniffled loudly, making his guardian groan in complete revulsion.

"Sorry," Eiji croaked.

"That is so fuckin' disgusting," Saitou muttered.

Eiji had been sick for three days now. He'd begun feeling unwell at school after waking up with a sore throat. He'd felt so bad that by midday, the school had called Tokio at the museum and she'd left early to pick the boy up and take him home. When Saitou had arrived later that evening, it had been to news that Eiji had the flu, and Tokio had made a shit ton of soup, as well as bought about a year's supply of medications and vitamins that she'd since spent a great deal of time trying to shove down the boy's throat, not that Eiji was cooperating (secretly, Saitou was on Eiji's side—he didn't remember a whole lot about being sick as a kid, since it had happened so infrequently, but he did remember that medicine always tasted like shit).

Since then, Saitou had obligingly switched his schedule to working nights so he could stay with Eiji during the day while Tokio was at the museum. Hijikata hadn't been happy with the request, and Okita and Shinomori hadn't been exactly thrilled either to lose their nights, but the former didn't mind enough to deny the request and the latter weren't stupid enough to complain in front of Saitou.

Well, Shinomori wasn't.

Eiji had spent the last three days pretty much sprawled out on the fold-out couch (Saitou sort of felt like a prick for not having bought the kid a real bed yet; that thing had to be horribly uncomfortable when you were healthy, never mind being sick and achy everywhere), ill and miserable…and grossing Saitou out.

"How is the flu grosser than blood and gunshot wounds and knife wounds?" Tokio had asked, incredulous.

"That's totally different," he'd replied, shuddering as another hacking cough rang out through the apartment.

Tokio rolled her eyes.

"Baby," she muttered.

"Snot is disgusting," he insisted.

"Uh-huh," she said, obviously not buying his theory that sickness and getting the shit shot out of you were two very different things on the scale of levels of disgusting. "Whatever you say, Hajime."

Currently, Saitou was sitting in a chair just outside Eiji's door, dutifully standing by should the boy require something, and also making sure Eiji was still alive. This he did mostly by asking if the kid was still alive after every bout of hacking, since he wanted to avoid direct contact with Eiji as much as possible. He kinda felt bad for his ward, because the little guy was sick as a dog and hating life, but the threat of nausea kept him from helping out as much as he could have.

Sick people were just _not_ his thing.

Eiji let out another painful and nasty round of coughing that left Saitou feeling queasy.

"Oi," he called, once he was sure he was able to speak, "still alive?"

"Unfortunately," Eiji weakly replied.

Saitou sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, caught between the scolding of his conscience that he should do something, and the protestations of his stomach that he so totally did _not_ want to go in there. On the floor next to Saitou's chair, Hachi was sprawled out, his head on Saitou's left foot, attention centered on Eiji's room. The puppy whined whenever Eiji coughed, obviously distressed, though Saitou didn't know if it was because the boy was sick or if it was because of the volume of the coughing.

"Hajime-oji?" Eiji asked, voice reedy and stuffy, from his room.

"Yeah?"

"This sucks."

"Yeah," Saitou agreed.

Eiji groaned in reply, and for the billionth time in three days, Saitou supposed he ought to be doing more to help the kid out.

But sick people were so…ick.

More coughing had Saitou cringing again, and Hachi whining pitifully, ears pressed down on top of his head.

…_Eeww_.

He sighed and reached down to pat the puppy's head, and tried to remember what his mother always did for him when he'd been sick as a boy, but that hadn't occurred very much; he vaguely remembered having the chicken pox in kindergarten, and having a head cold once or twice, but other than that, he hadn't missed much school as a kid.

And as an adult he'd never been sick. Hungover, maybe, but never sick.

It took a while, but eventually he decided that having something to take Eiji's mind off his illness might help, and nothing was better for that than a movie. So he muscled the TV and DVD player into Eiji's room and after some debate, popped _Enter the Dragon_ in. Perhaps not the most age-appropriate viewing choice for a ten-year-old, but Saitou had been horrified to learn that Eiji had no idea who Bruce Lee was.

"'Who's that?'" Saitou had repeated, staring at his ward as if the boy had grown a second head. "Are you _kidding_ me? You _never_ heard of Bruce Lee?"

"Nope," Eiji croaked. "He some movie guy?"

"He was _only_ the greatest martial artist to ever live! How the _fuck_ have you not heard of Bruce Lee?!"

"He does martial arts? Like karate?" Eiji asked.

"Did martial arts—he died in 1973," Saitou corrected.

"You remember that?"

"I wasn't alive then. I was born later."

"Wow, you're old, Hajime-oji."

"Shut up, little jack-off," Saitou muttered, whacking the back of the boy's head, though without as much force as he would have usually employed. "And he didn't do karate, he practiced Jeet Kune Do."

"What's that?"

"A form of Chinese Gung-Fu that he created."

Eiji looked taken aback by this information.

"He made up a martial art?" he asked, surprised.

"Yeah, you're totally watching _Enter the Dragon_," Saitou decided.

And that was how Tokio found them when she got home: Saitou and Eiji and Hachi were on the fold-out couch, guardian and ward side by side and puppy curled up next to Eiji, watching Bruce Lee and Han the Villain try to outwit each other in the climactic final showdown in the Hall of Mirrors.

"What are you watching?" she asked.

"Shh—Bruce Lee," Eiji ordered without looking at her.

Tokio raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"Shh," Saitou ordered, also without looking at her.

She watched them, hands on her hips, for several moments, before going over to the TV and turning it off, then crossing her arms over her chest and turning back to them.

They were watching her in horror.

"You did _not_," Saitou said after a pregnant pause, "just turn off _Enter the Dragon_."

Tokio's expectant expression promptly morphed into one of outrage.

"Saitou Hajime! I can't believe you showed that movie to a ten-year-old!"

"He didn't know who Bruce Lee was!" Saitou protested.

"That movie is completely inappropriate for Eiji!" Tokio shot back.

"Oi, I fast forwarded through the inappropriate parts," Saitou immediately defended.

She sent him a flat look that told him just how much that information comforted her.

"Tokio-oba!" Eiji whined. "Come on! It was almost over!"

"See? He liked it," Saitou said.

"I don't care!" Tokio snapped, throwing her hands up into the air. "How could you be so irresponsible?!"

"I made sure he didn't see anything he shouldn't have," Saitou said.

"He shouldn't have seen any of it!"

"Oh come on! The worst that happened was that a couple women flashed their tits for like a second—"

"_Hajime_!" Tokio shouted, appalled.

"What?" he asked, "I fast forwarded through that part."

"He is _not_ watching the end of that movie, and he _certainly_ isn't going to see any of the others," Tokio declared, her voice leaving no room for argument, "or I will throw them all out."

Saitou stared at her in pure, unadulterated horror.

"_The hell_ you'll throw them out!" he bellowed, standing. "That's a fuckin' _deal breaker_ right there, woman! I'd let you use my Kurosawa DVDs for _target practice_ before I'd let you toss out any of my Bruce Lee flicks!"

"And if you're smart, you won't turn that into a possibility," Tokio replied, completely unperturbed, before she turned and walked out of the room.

Hachi, who had been awakened by the arguing, leapt off the bed and trotted out after her, apparently intent on saying hello and getting petted by his mistress.

"Man," Eiji said after a moment. "She told you."

"She did not," Saitou grumbled, scowling. He looked over his shoulder at the boy. "You're watchin' _Fist of Fury_ tomorrow when she's not here."

"What about the end of that one?" Eiji protested, gesturing to the blank TV.

"Yeah yeah, that one too," Saitou assured impatiently. "Just don't say anything about it, or I'll strangle you."

"Right," Eiji said with a nod, either unconcerned by or perhaps used to death threats by now.

"Long as we understand each other," Saitou muttered.

He left the boy's room and found Tokio in the kitchen, inspecting the soup on the stove, Hachi sitting next to her, tail wagging as he watched her.

"How much did Eiji have today?" she asked.

"A couple bowls," he said, hands in his jeans pockets. "Mostly he drank a lot of water."

"Hm," was her reply. She placed the lid back on the pot and looked over at him, then raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be dressed for work?"

"Not going in," he said.

Both her eyebrows went up this time.

"Not going in?" she repeated. "Why not?"

"_Enter the Dragon_ was on," he replied, as if that should have been obvious, and she sent him a flat, disapproving look.

"You _own_ the DVD, Hajime."

"So what? It's _**Enter the Dragon**_—you sit down and watch it to the end when you see it. It's a rule. For all his movies." he added with authority.

She rolled her eyes and turned to the sink to start washing the dishes he'd ignored in lieu of Bruce Lee.

"You're demented," she muttered.

"Feh—you're a girl, you wouldn't understand it," he grumbled. "Although you should, having taken karate. How you have _no_ appreciation for the martial arts after taking one for only your _entire life_, I can't begin to understand."

"I have plenty of appreciation for martial arts," she replied snootily. "I just object to Eiji seeing those movies."

"He has video games more violent than what we were watching!" Saitou protested indignantly.

"He most certainly does not," Tokio replied.

Saitou opened his mouth to contest that, but Tokio beat him to it:

"The answer is no, Hajime. This is not negotiable."

He sent her back a sour look.

"He didn't know who Bruce Lee was," he muttered, in a voice that would have been petulant coming from anyone else.

"Then you should have picked your movies more wisely," she returned. "I wouldn't have objected to the documentary—which I know for a fact that you have."

If he'd been fifteen, he would have hated her guts for being so damn reasonable—as it was, he was mildly annoyed with her for thinking of something that, in all truth, had completely slipped his mind.

Still, as Saitou had already decided his course of action, he shrugged it off and the evening went on as usual, ending on a _very_ good note when he and Tokio went to bed later.

As that wasn't necessarily unusual, he didn't think anything of it, and was still in a fairly good mood when he got up the next morning.

It wasn't until he was sure Tokio was gone and would not be back that he realized exactly how devious the woman truly was.

When he went to retrieve both _Enter the Dragon_ and _Fist of Fury_, he found that the spots that they and all his other Bruce Lee flicks had so long adorned were empty. And had a heart attack:

"What the fuck?!" he exploded, frantically shoving aside DVDs, sure that he was just looking in the wrong place even though he knew he wasn't.

"What happened?" Eiji asked.

Saitou didn't answer—in fact, he hadn't heard the question, not in the full-blown panic he was in.

It took several minutes (and a lot of deep, even breathing) to calm down and examine things rationally. It was hard, though: he'd literally spent years building that collection, and finding copies of Bruce Lee's early films had been extremely difficult, time-consuming and expensive—finding them with Japanese subtitles had been almost impossible, even with Okita helping him.

He hadn't been kidding when he'd said he'd have sacrificed all of his Kurosawa films (another collection which had been lovingly built over the years) before he'd allow a single one of his Bruce Lee flicks to be touched.

"Tokio hid them," he said finally, struggling for rational behavior.

_And that had better be what had happened_, he thought darkly, fully ready to end the relationship if she'd gone through with her threat to toss the movies out.

He'd quit smoking for her, he'd try to be nice for her, he'd do _anything_ for her—but he would _not_ stand for her throwing out those movies.

"Where'd she hide 'em?" Eiji asked.

_Listen to the boy_, he told himself.

"Don't know," he said, rising slowly. "Aren't too many places to hide things around here."

"Want me to help?" Eiji offered, apparently realizing that his guardian was struggling not to have a nervous breakdown in front of him.

"Easier if I do it myself," Saitou replied evenly, beginning to really—finally—calm down, now that he had a plan of action.

"Sure?"

"Yeah—watch some cartoons or something while I look. Shouldn't take too long."

Eiji shrugged, then coughed into his fist.

"Okay," he croaked, reaching for the remote.

Saitou grabbed it and turned the TV on.

"Keep your microbes away from my remote," he ordered, sending his ward a baleful (and slightly grossed out) look.

Eiji sent him a dark look in return but didn't say anything.

Saitou found some cartoons that Eiji liked and left those on, then, with Hachi at his heels, began hunting for his beloved collection (he kept the remote in his back pocket). And he was right—it only took an hour and a half of diligent, painstaking—perhaps even a tad maniacal, to be entirely honest—searching to find the movies.

When he found them, his heart finally climbed down from the middle of his throat. And when he saw that Tokio had taken the time to place them in plastic bags before hiding them under the kitchen sink, behind the cleaning products, he was almost inclined to forgive her for taking about a decade off his life expectancy.

Almost.

But not really. Maybe in a few years from now, he'd consider it.

Like…fifty. That sounded like a nice, fair amount of time.

He had to lean his forehead against the counter edge for a few minutes, wondering if he was going to be sick from the relief; Hachi, perhaps noticing that he wasn't quite himself, leaned his head on Saitou's thigh in what he decided to take as a show of doggie moral support. Then, once he was sure he wasn't going to hurl, he gave Hachi's head a firm pat of thanks, and then carefully removed the movies from their hiding spot and opened the bags to meticulously check them over and make sure that they were all right.

And if that sounds a little obsessive…_clearly_, the reader has failed to grasp the soul-crushing severity of the situation.

"Found 'em," he called, as soon as he was assured that his collection had been unharmed.

"Sweet!" Eiji said, then coughed horribly loud, in a way that had Saitou rethinking the whole not-going-to-be-sick thing in a big way.

They saw the last minute and a half of _Enter the Dragon_, then began watching _Fist of Fury_, Hachi once more joining them on the fold-out couch, this time laying down between them. It was between the two movies that Saitou remembered he hadn't called Tokio to remind her to take her Pill, so he did then, and lied through his teeth about what they were doing. Then he put in _Fist of Fury_, and he and the dog and the boy settled in to watch Bruce Lee kick some more ass.

They were halfway through it when Hachi's head suddenly came up, and he looked out the door of Eiji's room toward the front door, ears pointed toward it. Saitou immediately paused the movie and turned off the TV for good measure, in case it was a certain Bruce Lee-opposing little executive who he was going to have a long discussion with tonight when she got home about hiding his things from him.

Hm. Perhaps fifty years wouldn't be quite enough time.

The door opened to reveal Okita, who walked in as if he lived there, shut the door and removed his shoes and left them on the rack in the entry before stepping up into the apartment and ambling over to Eiji's room.

And despite the fact that Saitou had known Okita for basically their entire lives, his friend's audacity still had the power to occasionally astound him.

"Who the fuck invited you, asshole?" Saitou demanded when Okita walked into Eiji's room.

"Nice to see you too," Okita dryly replied, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets.

"Who said you could just walk into my apartment?"

"Door was open," Okita said with a shrug.

"That's not an invitation you dipshit," Saitou snarled, irritated.

"Well lock your door next time."

"I don't lock my door when I'm here."

"Which is how I knew you were home," Okita concluded cheerfully, and Saitou seriously thought about chucking the remote at his idiot friend's head.

"Yo Eiji," Okita said with a smile for the boy, and Saitou suddenly smiled evilly.

"Oi, Eiji," Saitou said, before the kid could return the greeting.

"Yeah?"

"Cough on him."

Okita's smile froze on his face; Eiji sent his guardian an incredulous look.

"What?"

"Cough on him," Saitou repeated, taking sadistic delight in the panicked expression on Okita's face.

"He's sick?" Okita asked; none of them had heard why Saitou had suddenly decided to ask for them to be switched to night duty, not that it was out of the ordinary for Saitou to make these sorts of decisions and then not bother to explain himself to them.

"That's right," Saitou said with a wide smirk. "The flu."

Okita paled and backpedaled out of the room, calling Saitou every filthy name he could think of, and several he made up on the spot. Saitou filed away about six that impressed him, for later use (possibly against Okita himself), and enjoyed his friend's reaction.

"See why you shouldn't just walk into people's houses, ahou?" he called.

"You fucking suck!" Okita raged from the kitchen.

"I didn't even cough on him," Eiji said, bewildered, as he looked back over at his guardian.

Saitou patted him on the head.

"When the threat's effective enough, you don't have to do anything," he replied, turning the TV back on.

Unfortunately, he spoke too soon; when Okita realized they were watching _Fist of Fury_, he hurriedly joined them, bringing a chair from the table on which to make himself comfortable, and fashioning himself a mask out of towels as protection against Eiji's germs.

"You look like a fucking retard," Saitou told him for the tenth time, hoping to nag his friend into going away.

To no avail:

"Shh—Bruce Lee," Okita ordered, never taking his eyes from the screen.

So Saitou gave up, because he wanted to enjoy the movie and because he supposed that as long as Okita was being quiet, he could deal with him.

At the end of the movie, both men looked over at Eiji to gauge his reaction. Eiji looked at first Saitou, then Okita, then looked back over at the screen.

"That was so cool," he said finally, and Okita cackled behind his mask.

"He's one of us!" he declared, and Saitou eyed him balefully.

"Why am I friends with you?" he muttered.

"So that Jeet Kune Do he made," Eiji began, "is that what he was doin' in the movie?"

"What he was doing was a flashier version," Saitou replied, taking the DVD out of the player and returning it to its case. "Jeet Kune Do is a sort of anything goes form—you use whatever works, and most of the time what works is something really simple and uncomplicated. But simple and uncomplicated isn't as cool as something flashy, so you don't see a lot of practical moves in Kung-Fu movies."

"Like when he used the nun-chucks in _Enter the Dragon_?" Eiji asked and Saitou nodded, pleased the boy had recognized the difference.

"Bruce Lee is the most influential martial artist of the twentieth century," Okita informed him. "He was the one who popularized Kung-Fu movies in the west. Plus, he was just fuckin' _amazing_."

"He could send a 235 pound guy 15 feet back with his one inch punch," Saitou said. "And he was a small man."

"He could not," Eiji immediately said, his disbelief clear. "That's impossible."

"Oh ye of little faith!" Okita crowed. "You gotta show him the documentary with the '64 Long Beach Championship footage, Haji."

"After he eats lunch," Saitou decided.

The two told Eiji more about Bruce Lee while he ate his lunch, which is what led to Saitou eventually demonstrating the two-finger pushup that Bruce Lee was rather famous for.

"Okay, I believe you could _probably_ do a one handed pushup. But on _top_ of just usin' _one hand_, you _only_ use _two fingers_? You can't do pushups with just your thumb and pointer finger," Eiji adamantly insisted. "You'd break 'em!"

"You can do it," Okita insisted. "You just have to know what you're doing. And train like a beast."

"You train for _pushups_?" Eiji asked derisively, and Saitou whacked the back of his head.

"Idiot," he said. "Use your head—you train your body to be as excellent as possible. Yeah being able to do two-finger pushups is cool, but that's not the point—the point is that you're capable of the discipline that kind of thing takes."

Eiji rubbed his head and glared at his guardian, but it didn't have bite behind it, which meant the boy was listening.

Okita grinned, clearly amused by the interaction. "It's about power," he continued, picking up where Saitou had left off. "Power of the body, _and_ power of the mind."

"The martial arts aren't just physical. Your state of mind is as important as the state of your body, if not more so." Saitou agreed.

"'Using No Way As Way; Having No Limitation As Limitation'," Okita recited solemnly. "That's the essence of Jeet Kune Do."

"You're only as capable as you think you are," Saitou added. "If you think something's impossible, it is, because you've closed yourself off to that possibility."

Eiji eyed him with polite disbelief, so Saitou rolled his eyes, got down and proceeded to make the boy's eyes almost bulge out of his head when he did the two-finger pushups.

"How'd you do that?!" he practically yelled.

"'Having No Limitation as Limitation'," Okita quipped, amused. "Haji and me decided a long time ago that that was a philosophy we could live with. To that end, we tried to emulate Bruce, who lived by that, as much as possible. He's as close to perfection as we'll ever get in the martial arts world."

"So he was a master?" Eiji asked.

"Nope," Saitou said with a sigh, plopping down into a chair. "He considered himself a student-teacher. He believed that he would never know everything there is to know about the martial arts, and that he was constantly learning and sharing that knowledge with those willing to take it at more than just face value."

"And _that_ is why Bruce Lee is the greatest martial artist who ever lived," Okita concluded.

Eiji considered the two of them for a long while, then asked,

"Can we see that documentary now?"

"Finish your soup," Saitou ordered. "And don't suck it down, you'll make yourself sick."

"He's already sick."

"Hurl, asshat," Saitou snapped in annoyance.

Okita stayed until the end of the documentary, when Saitou decided his friend had imposed on his hospitality (abrupt as it was) for long enough. He then stashed the movies in their hiding place, fed Eiji again, and ordered the boy to get some sleep, then attended to all the things he'd ignored all day, so Tokio wouldn't accuse him of slacking off (or worse, figure out that he'd done more than just search for and find his collection), when she got home.

She was later today than usual, as this was his day off, an arrangement which suited him fine; he was able to clean up and do the dishes and start dinner (soba) before she walked in.

"Hey," she called when the door opened. "I'm home."

"Hey," he replied, inspecting the soba. "Welcome home."

"How was it today?" she asked, and he heard her shuffling what sounded like a lot of crap in the entry.

"As well as can be expected," he replied, just as the sound of something heavy falling was heard. He slowly looked over his shoulder towards the entry, frowning. "The hell was that?"

"Oh, a bunch of crap Kamatari shoved on me today," Tokio replied, sounding annoyed and a little muffled. "Apparently, he couldn't be bothered to do his job."

"Feh—like that's so unusual," he muttered, and Tokio laughed.

She left the entry and padded into the apartment and straight to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and kissing him.

"Miss me?" she asked, smiling up at him.

"Sure," he said, and she rolled her eyes and kissed him again.

"Thanks," she replied, letting go of him to inspect what was on the stove.

He gave her butt a light swat that she ignored in favor of groaning:

"Oh gods—I _desperately_ need to teach you how to cook."

"What?" he asked defensively. "You like soba."

"Yes, _like_—not _crave_," she said, replacing the lid on the pot.

"Feh," was all he had to say on that.

She turned back to him and held out her arms.

"Back?" he asked, and she nodded, so he obligingly lifted her up and cracked it for her, and she sighed contentedly and wrapped her arms around his waist once he set her down.

"You are such a weird woman," he informed her, and she laughed into his shirt front.

"It feels good," she said.

"Yeah but not enough for most women to ignore how gross the sound of bones cracking sounds to them."

She shrugged and let her head drop back to look up at him.

"How's Eiji doing?"

"Okay—he still grosses me out, though." he added, and she rolled her eyes.

"And he says I'm the _weird_ one," she muttered.

"Oi," he said, raising an eyebrow. "More respect."

And deciding that this was as good an opening as any, he continued:

"And speaking of respect, may I enquire as to the reason—which I am sure you have ready for me—why my Bruce Lee collection is sitting under the sink in plastic bags?"

For a second she just stared up at him in complete shock—clearly, she hadn't been expecting him to discover her treachery quite this quickly. Then she asked,

"You found them?"

"Yes," he said, surprised at just how calm he was. "After the longest hour and a half of my life."

She looked dismayed.

"It only took you an hour and a half to find them?"

He sent her an incredulous look.

"Was I playing some twisted game I didn't know about?" he asked. "Whaddaya mean 'It only took you an hour and a half to find them'?! Do you have any idea what I went through? I thought you'd thrown them out!"

"Oh stop," she scoffed.

"Oi! It took me _years_ to find all those movies!" he said, outraged.

"And you'd have tossed me out if I'd tossed them out?" she asked, clearly not believing him.

"Yes!"

"Hajime, that is completely juvenile," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I don't threaten to throw your shit out," he grumbled, glaring at her. "Even though I should, since more of it takes over the place everyday."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Are you likening me to bacteria?" she asked dryly.

"Since you shoved my Bruce Lee movies under the sink, then yes, I am," he snootily returned.

"You are a child," she muttered, rolling her eyes as she moved away from him, clearly irritated with him.

Which sort of irritated _him_, since he didn't really think she had an excuse to be irritated—if anyone did, as far as he was concerned, it was him.

"That collection took me years to put together, Tokio," he said.

"Yeah I heard you the first time," she replied in a disinterested tone, now going through the cupboard to grab bowls.

"Oi!" he snapped. "Look, I know you don't give a shit, but at least pretend, huh? Or do you really think I find every aspect of _your_ life so fucking enthralling?"

She sent him a nasty look over one shoulder, then slammed the plates down on the counter and whipped the cabinet door shut.

"Fine, you want to get into a fight about DVDs? Bring it," she said, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Fine—what the fuck were you thinking moving my shit from where it goes and hiding it from me?"

"I was thinking that Eiji, who is _ten_, should not be watching Bruce Lee's movies. They're not appropriate for someone his age."

"And I was watching _Enter the Dragon_ with him and making sure he didn't see anything inappropriate."

"It's extremely violent—"

"Bullshit!"

Her glare deepened.

"I was talking," she snapped.

"Yeah, you were talking shit is what you were talking," he returned, turning off the burner so the pot of soba didn't boil over; if this went the way he was thinking it was going to go, they'd be dueling for a while.

"Oh _I_ was talking shit?" she threw back. "And you weren't?"

"No," he snapped.

She sent him another one of those special looks she kept in reserve just for him—this one was the "You-are-so-full-of-it-that-it's-_overflowing_-out-of-you" one.

He _hated_ that one.

"Okay, fine, this isn't a productive line of argument," he said abruptly. Then he glared at her: "You had no right to move and hide my shit."

She pursed her lips and eyed him in silence, and Saitou was cautiously hopeful that there was no way she was going to be able to worm her way out of this one, because if there was one thing they respected, it was each other's crap. As much as it made him twitch sometimes, when her things occasionally found their way into his things or otherwise out of their designated places, she was always good about righting the situation. And she had been especially good about putting anything of his that she used back where it belonged (And, as an added plus, she didn't try to use his razor, seemingly perfectly happy with her own).

It was one thing about her that he couldn't complain about, because things were never out of place long enough for him to.

"Fine," she said finally. "You're right. I had no right to move and hide your things from you."

_Feh—point, me_, he thought to himself with no small amount of satisfaction.

So maybe it wasn't exactly mature—he didn't win too many of these arguments. He was going to take every point he could get and _treasure_ it.

"But I only did it because I know you," she continued, eyes narrowing.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"If I'd just left them there you would have ignored what I'd said and showed them to Eiji anyway," she said.

_Smart girl_, he thought.

"If I'm watching the movies with him—" he began.

"Hajime that is not the point," she cut in.

"Then what is it?"

"I don't want Eiji seeing those movies. He's too young."

"I saw 'em when I was a kid," he pointed out.

"And you turned out just as normal as can be, didn't you?" she dryly replied.

"Low blow," he warned, and she rolled her eyes.

"Fine, sorry," she said. "But I still don't want him watching those movies. They're very violent."

He rolled his eyes.

"Tokio, come on—the shit that's on TV these days is more violent than any of those movies."

"_The Big Boss_ has Bruce Lee brutally killing 20 men," she said flatly.

"But that saw-in-the-head shot isn't in there," he pointed out. Pause. "And it's more like 15 guys, if you want to be technical, not 20."

"Oh a five person difference!" she shot back. "And that saw-in-the-head shot isn't what I meant and you know it!"

"Oi, five dead bodies is a big difference," he defended. "And the saw-in-the-head shot would have been like the worst shot, from the pictures I've seen."

He decided not to remind her of the deaths of two of the Lee character's cousins at the hands of the villains, as she appeared to have forgotten that one of them had met his unfortunate end via a hatchet to the head—no use giving her more ammunition.

"He kills three men with an icepick!"

"All right, so I wouldn't show him that one, then," Saitou conceded, supposing he could see why she'd object to that film.

"He shouldn't be watching _any_ of them," she said with heavy disapproval.

"Tokio—"

"Hajime, Eiji is _ten-years-old_. Those movies are not appropriate for a child. I don't care if you watch them, but Eiji seeing any of them is out of the question. It's bad enough that he saw _Enter the Dragon_."

He sent her a sour look.

"Well what about _Game of Death_?"

"No."

"Oh come on!"

"No! Look, the documentary is fine, but the movies—_all_ of them—are off limits!"

He knew he wasn't going to win this one. Usually by now, he'd been able to wear her down, but she was being rather (frustratingly) unmovable on this, and he was starting to get tired of saying the same thing over again and getting nowhere.

"Fine," he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Promise?" she asked, hands on her hips.

"Yeah, he won't see anymore of 'em," he muttered.

She sighed, then smiled at him.

"Thank you," she said.

"Uh-huh."

"Oh stop being a baby," she chided. "You just have to wait until he gets a little older. Then you can bond over violence all you want."

"We were not bonding over violence," he corrected. "I was educating the boy in martial arts excellence."

"Okay," she said, clearly not believing him.

He decided not to pursue it—it wasn't worth it.

She went to go check on the boy while he dished out dinner and set the table. While thus occupied, he heard the low murmur of conversation from the other room, which meant Eiji was awake now, and he silently hoped the boy would keep his trap shut about having seen _Fist of Fury_, or the child would not be living to see the end of his illness. He figured he could count on Eiji to be a tomb, though—kid had yet to let slip any of the things Saitou had done in his presence that Tokio would have objected to, had she been present. Granted, vows of silence usually required "prompting" on Saitou's part, but Eiji was starting to catch on.

Happily, it appeared this was one of those instances where Eiji knew to keep his mouth shut without needing to be told so, because when Tokio came back out, she only remarked that Eiji was looking a little better.

So he and Tokio sat down to have dinner together, and Eiji lived to see another day.

An acceptable end to an (overall) okay day.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

Oh he should have seen this coming a mile away.

Hell, _three_ miles away.

Saitou curled up into a miserable ball of diseased policeman on his side of the bed.

He was sick.

With the flu.

…_Son of a bitch_.

Vaguely, in the back of his mind, an outraged little voice demanded to know how in the hell this had happened, after he'd managed to avoid being sick for his entire adult life up to this point. It had been a source of pride for him, like his attendance record…which had also, rather recently, been given up on as a lost and utterly hopeless cause. He'd missed more days since he'd begun dating Tokio than he had in the whole nine—scratch that, ten—years he'd been with the MPD, and he'd been late more times than he'd ever been in his entire life, period; as a kid, he'd been infuriatingly punctual for everything, earning him the hatred of his peers and the adoration-mixed-with-vague-fear of his teachers.

Stood to reason that his clean bill of health was next on the list of qualities he was known for that Tokio was bound and determined to assassinate.

Well, that wasn't entirely fair—he didn't really mind her making him late for work in the mornings (and sometimes evenings), or her convincing him to take the day off (which didn't take a whole lot of convincing on her part, incidentally; a well-timed flash of thigh was usually enough). Hell, he pretty much asked to be distracted, and he didn't complain a damn bit while he was being distracted. So that was kind of his fault. Or was it? Because he was pretty sure she purposely used his known weaknesses (i.e., his fixation on her legs and ass and the whole ear-nibbling thing that still mortified him) against him, and come on now, honestly, a man could only take so much. And when Tokio was the one doing the distracting, well, Saitou knew his limits, and if he hadn't known them before meeting her, he'd been made blindingly clear of them since then.

The urge to throw up got harder to ignore, and Saitou wanted to curse, only he was pretty sure that 1) even opening his mouth to draw in the breath to do just that would prompt him to hurl, and 2) Tokio would wake up, and he wanted to delay that and hold onto his dignity as a man for as long as possible.

So instead, he uncurled himself from the fetal position and managed to get out of the bed without waking up Tokio. He also managed to get to the toilet without alerting either her or the boy that he was up, and by some wonderful miracle from possibly the very gods themselves, he was able to throw up and not draw any attention to himself. He tried to convince himself that this was exactly what he wanted.

The whiny-bitch part of himself he'd thought long dead, however, said otherwise.

Saitou tried to ignore it as best he could.

It took a very long time for him to get up the strength to go back to bed, which appalled him, to understate in the extreme. He felt like he was going to collapse any second, and for a guy who'd been doing two finger pushups only 48 hours before, it was one hell of a kick in the balls.

As it was, rinsing out his mouth felt like a reviled chore, and walking the few feet back to the bedroom felt like punishment; if he'd been less of a hard-ass, he might have wept in relief once he crawled back into bed and curled up into a ball under the sheets.

Maybe.

He must have drifted off eventually, because all of a sudden Tokio was curled up against his back, arms around him, asking him if he was all right, he felt too warm and was shaking.

"I'm fine," he said.

"You sound awful," she said, and he felt the bed shift behind him. Then she was leaning over him, her hair tickling the side of his neck. "Hajime? Are you okay?"

"I said I was fine," he grumbled, wincing when he heard how weak he sounded—_shit_.

She put a palm against his forehead, then moved it to his left cheek, then his right, then back to his forehead.

"You're too hot," she murmured, and he could just picture her frowning.

"Thanks for noticing," he said, in an attempt to convince her that he was so totally not about to _die_.

"I'm serious, ahou," she said, apparently finding his attempt at humor extremely unfunny. The bed shifted again, and then the lamp on her night table flicked on and she returned to his side; he was grateful his back was to her side, or he'd have been blinded on top of being diseased.

"Oh Hajime," she said in dismay, and he cracked an eye open and looked at her to find her watching him with wide, worried eyes. "Sweetheart you look terrible!"

"I just woke up, gimme a while," he replied.

She didn't pay any attention; she was brushing his bangs out of his eyes and using the sleeve of her sleep shirt to wipe his forehead and just generally fussing over him.

And in his secret, whiny-bitch little heart, he enjoyed every humiliating moment of it.

She got up and found the thermometer and shoved it into his mouth, then got a damp cloth and wiped his face. When she checked his temperature, her worried frown deepened.

"Your temperature's really high," she said, setting the thermometer on his bedside table, then setting a hand over his forehead. "When did you start feeling bad?"

"This morning," he answered, eyes closed—okay, this was actually sort of nice. A lot less ego-damaging than he'd been envisioning, anyway, so he decided he could live with this.

"Well why didn't you wake me up?" she asked, sounding hurt.

"You were asleep."

She sighed.

"Hajime, wake me up next time, okay? It could have been something serious—you could have died!"

"Ain't gonna be a nex' time," he slurred crankily.

She didn't say anything about that, though he thought he might have heard her sigh again, more softly.

"Okay, I'm going to get you some aspirin. Do you want anything else?"

"Turn off the light."

"Okay."

She crawled over and flicked the light off, and the room was once more bathed in darkness. He felt her lean over him and kiss his forehead, then murmur against his skin,

"I'll be back in a little bit, okay?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay."

She was as good as her word, returning very soon with two aspirins and a glass of water. She also, despite his (feeble) protests, got back into the bed with him and snuggled with him, which was fine so long as no one knew about it and his reputation as an asshole was safe….

"Hajime-oji?" came a sleepy, ten-year-old voice from the doorway, and Saitou decided the gods' favor had expired. "Tokio-oba? It's late."

"Go back to sleep, honey," Tokio murmured. "No one's going anywhere today."

"We aren't?" Eiji asked, sounding surprised.

"Nope—we're playing hooky. So go ahead and sleep in, and I'll get up in a little while and make you something to eat, okay?"

"Cool," Eiji said, obviously approving this plan, and Saitou heard the boy pad back into his room and shut the door.

"He should go to school," he muttered. "He's well enough."

"One more day won't hurt," Tokio replied, smoothing his hair back. "It'll do him good to get the extra day—he didn't exactly sleep peacefully the whole time he was sick."

"Great," he said sarcastically, "I have so much to look forward to."

Tokio laughed quietly.

"My poor baby," she said softly, nuzzling him. "The next few days are going to suck so very much for you."

"Thanks for the encouragement." was his sour response.

She smiled against his skin and kissed his jaw.

"I'll try to remember to be more supportive," she assured. "Now go back to sleep, and I'll get you something in a little while."

Saitou spent his first sick day in almost two decades in bed, too exhausted and achy to move. He was extremely miserable, far more miserable than he could ever remember being.

That was when he decided that he just didn't do sickness in general, and his own sickness in particular.

Tokio was very good about keeping things in the apartment quiet so he'd be able to sleep, not that he really could; his back hurt too much for that, to the point that he actually made himself turn over to lie on his stomach because lying on his back felt like it was making it worse.

He was by turns freezing cold and suffocating, and the thought of food made him gag. His head hurt, and when the coughing started later on during the day, it got worse.

"How're you doing sweetheart?" Tokio asked quietly some time around three (he could tell by the angle of the sunlight creeping in from under the blinds). She crawled into bed with him and lightly rubbed his back.

"I want to die," he informed her, voice hoarse.

She made one of those inane feminine sounds of sympathy in the back of her throat.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "Do you want me to get you something?"

"If I asked you to get my katana, would you?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of something to drink," Tokio said dryly.

"If it's poison, I'm all for it."

"Hajime," she said in disapproval. "Look, how about some tea? And maybe a little toast?"

Saitou gagged.

"No food," he insisted.

"You have to eat something," she protested.

"No food," he repeated.

She sighed.

"All right, no food," she agreed. "But you have to drink something."

"I guess tea's all right," he grumbled; his stomach churned in protest, but he didn't feel like arguing with Tokio when he felt like shit.

His odds of winning, which were iffy even when he was well, were low as hell now that he couldn't really concentrate.

The boy came in about then.

"Tokio-oba, you have any glue?"

"Glue?" Tokio asked curiously.

"Yeah." Eiji said with a nod.

"I don't think so," she said.

"Whaddaya need glue for?" Saitou asked.

"Something," Eiji said in that annoyingly vague way of children.

"Well _obviously_," Saitou replied, and would have rolled his eyes if he were feeling normal. "What is it?"

"Just something," Eiji mildly repeated, then looked at Tokio. "What about tape?"

"In the box under the bed where I keep the gift-wrap stuff," Tokio said.

"Okay," Eiji chirped, then got down on his hands and knees to drag the box out from under the bed.

Tokio and Saitou exchanged amused looks before Tokio crawled over to the edge and sat back on her heels to watch Eiji.

"Is what you're using the tape for a secret, Eiji-kun?" she asked with a grin.

"Not really," the boy's muffled voice replied. Saitou heard plastic rasp against carpet, and then Eiji's dark head bobbed up.

"So then tell me what it is," Tokio said with a slight whine.

Eiji grinned and shook his head, popping the lid on the plastic box open.

"You're so weird, Tokio-oba," he said, sounding amused.

Tokio pouted at him.

"Are not."

"Yuh-huh."

"Nuh-uh."

Eiji grabbed the tape then sauntered out of the room.

"Wonder what that's all about," Saitou said after a moment.

"Probably something for a girl he likes," Tokio mused thoughtfully, head cocked.

"Like what?" he asked.

Tokio shrugged. "Something that requires glue or tape, apparently," she replied. "Maybe a little card."

"A homemade card?" Saitou asked, raising an eyebrow. "He could just go out and buy one."

Tokio shrugged, smiling.

"When you really like someone you go all out," she said, reaching over and ruffling his hair. "Right?"

He shrugged, and she rolled her eyes.

"Jerk," she said affectionately.

Eiji returned a few minutes later, plopped the tape down into the plastic box, then snapped the lid back on and shoved it back under the bed.

"Thanks Tokio-oba," he said.

"You're welcome," Tokio said. She then grinned widely at the boy. "Can I see what you're makin'?" she asked.

"Nope," Eiji said breezily, sauntering out of the room again, and Tokio's jaw dropped; Saitou, despite the fact that he was going to be very unhappy later, laughed, at least up until he started coughing too much to keep laughing.

"Serves you right," she mumbled, sending him a baleful look, when he groaned and burrowed under the sheets to wallow in misery.

"Shut up," he said, voice muffled but clearly surly.

"Be nice or I won't take care of you," she warned, tone deceptively sweet.

"Feh," he sneered, then sneezed and groaned.

Tokio laughed, then tugged the sheets off of him and kissed his temple.

"I'll get you tea," she said, nuzzling him.

"Yeah," he said lamely.

She smiled, kissed his temple again, then left the room to get him the tea.

He was half asleep when she came back, Eiji with her.

"What's that?" he heard the boy ask.

"What's what?" Tokio asked.

"That box."

Saitou forced his eyes open and found Eiji kneeling down on the floor by his side of the bed, Tokio standing over the kid, watching him.

"Oi," Saitou rasped, and Tokio looked up at him and smiled.

"Hey sickie," she said. "I thought you were asleep."

"Half," he said.

"It's knives," Eiji said, popping up, awkwardly holding a large box. "Look-it—see?"

At first Saitou stared at the box and wondered what in the hell it was doing there. Then he remembered what they were doing there, and wondered if he'd be able to successfully plead insanity when he was charged with the brutal murder of his ward.

"What in the world are those doing there?" Tokio asked, looking perplexed.

"Uh-uh," Eiji replied, complete with shrug.

"That's weird," Tokio said, then looked over at Saitou, who was busy glaring at Eiji. "Hajime?" she asked, frowning. "What are you doing?"

"What'd I do?" Eiji asked warily, scooting back upon realizing his guardian was scowling at him—even though he knew Saitou was sick, moving out of the older man's reach was, by now, a reflex.

Saitou sighed—no use for it now.

"You remember those knives you liked? From that infomercial?" he asked Tokio wearily.

"Ye—_oh_!" Tokio's face lit up. "I _knew_ they looked familiar!" She set the cup of tea down on the night table and bent over and examined the box, then looked over at Saitou, very obviously pleased with him. "You bought them for me?" she asked.

"Yes," he admitted sourly. "I was waitin' to give 'em to you."

"For White Day?" she asked after a moment, apparently concluding that he'd been waiting for a holiday.

He didn't get the opportunity to correct her—or even reply, for that matter:

Eiji wrinkled his nose.

"You got Tokio-oba _knives_ for White Day?" he asked, tone disdainful.

Saitou sent him a black look:

"You just wait until I can move again," he muttered.

The boy slumped down and appeared to be trying to hide behind the box.

Feh—like a _box_ would stop Saitou.

"Well I love them," Tokio said, reaching over and taking the box from Eiji. "And I wouldn't have minded getting them for White Day at all—_much_ better than candy."

Eiji considered his guardians for a moment, then shook his head.

"You guys are _so_ weird," he said, sounding baffled.

"Shut up," Saitou grumbled, more for show than anything; if Tokio wanted to think he'd been planning to gift her with the knives for White Day, he wasn't about to contradict her (the truth was that he'd…er…sort of _forgotten_ about them. A lot had happened since he'd ordered them, and knives were sort of low down on the list of priorities, in the grand scheme of things).

He was still going to get her the pralines for White Day, as Kamatari had advised many months ago, though.

"I guess when you slid the box back under the bed, you pushed it back too far and it pushed this one out enough for you to see," Tokio was saying to Eiji.

"He _shoved_ the box under the bed," Saitou corrected. "If he'd slid it, the knives'd still be under there and you would have gotten them when you were supposed to."

"Oh so I got my present a little early," Tokio replied dismissively. "Besides, now you get soup."

"I do?" Saitou asked.

"Uh-huh—I'm going to try out my new knives." Tokio said cheerfully, the box under one arm. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Thank you Hajime."

"You're welcome," he said, and she beamed at him, then turned and left the room.

"I still think it's weird to give a girl knives for White Day," Eiji muttered, rising.

"No one asked you," Saitou said, weakly dragging himself into a sitting position and grabbing the cup of tea off the night table with both hands.

"Geez—_tou-chy_," Eiji mumbled. "Sorry I ruined your present, Hajime-oji," he said after a moment, head bowed.

"Don't worry about it," Saitou said. "I've got something else I can give her."

Eiji eyed him from under his hair.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Saitou glared at him. "I'm still beating your ass for getting me sick, though."

"How is that _my_ fault?" Eiji demanded, now looking at him with an incredulous expression on his face.

"I told you to keep your microbes to yourself, you little creep," Saitou shot back.

"It's not like I had a choice!"

"The hell you didn't!"

"I couldn't control my sneezing!"

"You didn't try to."

"I'm ten!"

"Don't pull that 'I'm ten' crap on me—you know that doesn't work."

"I'll tell Tokio-oba you're picking on me," Eiji warned.

Saitou sent him a smug look.

"I'm sick," he said haughtily. "Automatic immunity."

Eiji glared at him.

"Jerk," he mumbled.

"Go back to making your card for your little girlfriend," Saitou shot back.

Eiji immediately went red in the face.

"I do _not_ have a girlfriend!" he bellowed, and Saitou smirked.

"But you _are_ making a card for a girl?" he asked dryly, and Eiji's blush deepened.

"Sh…you shut up! What do you know anyway!" Eiji shot back, running out of the room.

Saitou smirked.

"Brats," he said, and was then seized by a particularly brutal round of hacking. "I'm definitely killing the little shit," he rasping, glaring at the doorway, when he was able to breathe again.

Kid wasn't going to live long enough to admit he didn't think girls had cooties, if Saitou had anything to say about it.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chpt 39: Fish and Relatives:_

Before Saitou was able to respond to that, his nephew launched himself at his uncle, and made excruciating contact with a very tender portion of the male anatomy.

"Hajime!" Tokio and Katsu yelled, horrified looks on their faces.

"Oh man, that _hurrrrrt_," Toshiaki said with a wince.

"Is he dead?" Eiji asked, expression appalled.

"I should be so lucky," Saitou was able to get out, sounding like he was about to cry.

Not that anyone would have blamed him.

---

Tokio's shriek ripped Saitou from dead sleep.

"What?" he snapped, sitting up and ready to kill whatever it was that was trespassing in his territory.

"Yo Haji," Katsu's husband cheerfully said, complete with smile and wave. "I was just askin' Tokio-san where the frying pan was."

Saitou stared at him.

"Get out," he said finally, his disbelief clear in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm gonna make break—"

"No asshat—I mean _get out_," Saitou interrupted. "As in, _get out_ of _our_ room."

---

"Uhm, well, I was brushing my teeth, you know? And—well—that is—your brother-in-law sort of…he, uh—came in while I was brushing my teeth and he—he—uhm, used the toilet?"

Saitou and Eiji blankly stared at her in silence for a few moments. Then Saitou asked,

"_What_?"

"Yeah," Tokio said with a nod, knowing that "_What_?" actually meant "Are you _serious_?"

"Gross," Eiji said, expression twisted in distaste.

"_Yeah_," Tokio agreed, her nod far more emphatic this time. "_Very_ yeah."

----

"Why do you hate me?" Saitou asked despairingly.

"Oh stop," Katsu replied, rolling her eyes. "I don't hate you, you ahou."

"The fact that you brought your fucktard husband says different," Saitou muttered petulantly.

"Hajime, what was I supposed to do, leave him home?"

"Uhhh, _duh_?"


	39. Fish and Visitors

**HAPPY 2****ND**** BIRTHDAY **_**CAPTAIN MIS**_**!!**

(Right, so it's a day later than I'd been planning, but yeah. I predicted that.)

Those of you following me on my LJ know I was feeling vaguely nostalgic a few days back, when it occurred to me that my idiot child's second "birthday" was upon me. It still brings me no end of amusement when I think about my expectations that I'd be done with this story within a few months. My my, how true it rings, that old phrase: "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Anyway, that's enough of that.

So, in honor of _Captain Miserable_'s entrance into the "Terrible Twos," I give you all your long-awaited updated. Thanks for all the support and love; I appreciate it much more than you know.

* * *

Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….

* * *

Words To Watch Out For:

Nothing, to my knowledge.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

The title of this chapter comes from a Ben Franklin phrase. I forget the actual phrase, but the version I'm most familiar with goes as follows: "Fish and visitors stink after three days." Which is an accurate summation of the situation, really.

* * *

_Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_**Chapter Thirty-Nine: Fish and Visitors**_

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

There were two things Saitou hated about being sick.

The first was the actual being sick part. He found nothing enjoyable about being miserable and achy and generally feeling like three day old shit. Granted, having Tokio take care of him was nice, but she hadn't been able to stay home with him for the duration of his illness. So she'd had to tailor her care around that, making him a shitload of soup and leaving it on the stove for him, ready to be heated and consumed; leaving water and aspirin and tissues within easy reach; and making sure that sunlight would not be able to get into the room, every day, before she left. She called him and checked up on him at regular intervals during the day, and made an effort to be home by six at the latest, which was an inconvenience for her, what with all the work now under way at the museum.

She'd also asked Nanao-san to come by the apartment whenever it was convenient for her and look in on Saitou, since the elderly woman was home all day and didn't mind helping Tokio out. It was weird for Saitou, having Nanao-san in the apartment, dishing out his soup for him and making sure he got his rest and generally fussing over him in a very grandmotherly way—by the time he'd been born, both of his grandmothers were gone, so he'd never known them. His sister remembered them, and Hiroaki had a vague impression of both, but Saitou had never met them. He imagined Nanao-san was probably what his grandmothers would have been like, especially his mother's mother. Nanao-san looked like a little old country grandmother, and Saitou remembered seeing a few of them as a boy—all she was missing was the kerchief tied around her white-streaked black hair, and the rolled up sleeves.

And the stocky build; she was a little too skinny to be the quintessential country grandmother.

Other than that, she had it down.

The second thing that Saitou hated about being sick was that he tended to forget things, since his concentration and retention were shit for a while, even after the worst of his illness was past.

Which was why he didn't remember that his sister and her family were coming for a visit, and staying with him, until he arrived at his building and found them standing before the elevators.

"Oh _shit_," he said, scowling and rubbing his forehead really hard in the hopes that the heel of his hand would magically break through his skull and kill him.

No such luck.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

When Saitou had first met his future brother-in-law, he had hated the man on sight.

Soma Toshiaki was studying to be a doctor. He was nice enough, decent looking, came from a good family, and went to a very good medical school.

He was also the single most annoying human being Saitou had ever met.

The man made Okita look like a fucking _delight_.

Saitou's older brother thought Toshiaki was a moron too, and it was perhaps the one thing the brothers Saitou agreed on, no qualifiers attached. They had ruined the family photos at the wedding reception by scowling in every single picture (or so Katsu had accused, and she still hadn't forgiven them for that, not that her brothers really cared), and Saitou had punched Toshiaki in the mouth at his niece Yukiko's christening when he had decided he'd had enough of his brother-in-law (Hiroaki had, upon being informed of the incident, shouted a _very_ filthy word in front of the officiating priest and loudly complained that his little brother was always getting all the fun, which had resulted in his mother whacking him with her purse and his wife not speaking to him for a week).

Despite this, Toshiaki laughed the hostility off and called their relationship "very complex."

Saitou didn't think it was all that "complex": he hated Toshiaki, and the asshole was too stupid to realize it.

See? Very simple.

His mother was always on his ass about treating _poor_ Toshiaki so _horribly_, saying that he was going to kill her from the _shame_ of it all.

"Mom, he's a fucking idiot," Saitou would usually reply, and then yelp when his mother invariably whacked him a few times over the head with whatever she had handy—ladle, spoon, book, and once, a shoe.

(He still didn't understand how his mother, who barely reached his shoulder, could whack him over the head without fail every time. It was like she grew or something for the sole purpose of beating on him.)

If he got her upset enough, she'd call his father, and then Saitou would be subjected to Yuusuke's bellowing on how Saitou was an ungrateful boy and never listened to his venerable old father's wisdom, and it was at that point that Saitou suspected his dear, sweet mother actually hated him, because he was sure that if she loved him she wouldn't involve his lunatic father in anything having to do with him. And then his lunatic father would start a fist fight with his youngest son, just to prove he could still beat his ass, and Saitou would prove his father wrong, and Yuusuke would say that if it weren't for his training Saitou wouldn't have been able to beat him, and then Saitou would give up, kiss his mother good-bye and leave the house, his father yelling after him that he was an ungrateful boy and never listened to his venerable old father's wisdom….

…and next month he'd get to do it all over again.

His mother couldn't understand why he hated Toshiaki, and refused to accept "Because he's a fucking _dumbass_, Mom!" as a legitimate excuse.

"He's a doctor, Haji-chan," she'd say.

And Saitou would roll his eyes and say,

"Yeah? Maybe he gave himself a lobotomy and that's why he's such a fucking dumbass."

And then he'd get hit again.

His grandfather thought Toshiaki was a moron too, but he didn't necessarily see that as a bad thing:

"Yeah, well when he starts trying to be your _buddy_, get back to me," Saitou bitterly grumbled once, and Denpachi laughed and Saitou had left, pissed off at being laughed at.

And that was the crux of it, really: Toshiaki was always trying to ingratiate himself to Saitou, when all Saitou really wanted was to get away from the guy. He was annoying and an idiot and Saitou always felt like he was losing brain cells by the ton when he was forced into extended contact with his brother-in-law.

So of course, he was always stuck with the schmuck.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Yo, Haji!" Toshiaki cheerfully greeted, and Saitou ground his back teeth.

This was _not good_. This was _very not good_. Tokio had no idea his sister was going to be staying with them, because Saitou had forgotten that he'd been badgered into offering his place to them while they were in town. That this had been decided months and months and months ago was just going to piss her off worse. On top of that, Saitou didn't actually have any space for them, not with Eiji and the dog also in residence.

"You didn't meet us," Katsu said, frowning at him, and Saitou sighed wearily—_Here we go_, he thought dismally….

He looked a great deal like his sister, though she wasn't quite as tall (still taller than average—all of them were) or as lanky or as gaunt as he was. But she had the same narrow, amber eyes, and the same sardonic way of making people feel very small and uncomfortable.

Little wonder—he'd learned how to do it from her, after all.

"I forgot, Katsu," he said, rubbing his forehead; the headache that he'd had for most of his illness was back with a vengeance.

"Hajime, I emailed you last night and sent you all the information," Katsu said, frown deepening. "I had to call Aki to pick us up, and it took hours, because he had to get out of work early."

"What the fuck, Katsu, _I forgot_!" Saitou snapped, already incredibly annoyed, and it had only been a minute. "Fucking hells, it happens, all right?"

"Tch—probably didn't even check your mail," Katsu said in disgust, rolling her eyes and shifting the child on her hip higher. "Well? Are you going to let us just stand here?"

"You could have just gone up," Saitou shot back. "It's not like you don't know where I live."

"Toshi and I can't take all this up by ourselves," Katsu retorted, gesturing to the truly frightening amount of luggage they'd carted with them from Nara.

"Jesus," Saitou groaned, now vigorously rubbing the heels of both hands over his eyes.

And then his day got worse.

"—and I got like the best score of everyone, Tokio-oba," Eiji's cheerful voice said as the door to the building opened.

_One bolt of lightning, come on_, Saitou silently pleaded.

The gods deigned not to answer, with a lightning bolt or otherwise, so he glared at the roof and gave it a quick finger before turning around to face Tokio and Eiji, who had by then noticed the crowd in the lobby of the building and were eyeing Katsu and her family curiously.

"Hey," Tokio greeted him with a small, questioning smile.

"Hey," he said wearily. "I can totally explain this, but you're not going to like it."

Tokio's eyebrows rose, but before anything else could happen, Toshiaki said,

"Oh, you must be Haji's lady friend that Mom's been wondering about."

Tokio blinked, thrown off.

"Who?" she asked, puzzled, at the same moment that Saitou whirled around and snarled,

"Shut the fuck up, Soma, or I put my foot in your ass!"

"Hajime!" Tokio and Katsu snapped at the same time.

"He's askin' for it!" Saitou said, pointing at a sheepish looking Toshiaki. "Control your idiot, Katsu!"

"Stop being a jerk-off!" Katsu said.

"OI!" Tokio shouted, bringing attention back to her. "_What_ is going on here?"

"That's my sister," Saitou grudgingly admitted, tossing his eldest sibling a baleful look she returned. "And that's her dumb fuck husband—"

"Saitou Hajime—_language_," Tokio said flatly, and he rolled his eyes.

"Like the boy hasn't heard me say worse," he groused.

"That is not the point—stop acting like a baby." She sent him a glare that would have blistered his skin off if it had been possible, then became the gracious hostess and went over to Katsu and Toshiaki and politely introduced herself and Eiji.

Saitou glared at the back of her head and sulked, hands shoved into his pockets.

That was about the moment he finally realized that his sister was missing two of her off-spring, and after looking around with a vague frown asked,

"Oi, Katsu? Where're Teru and Toshikazu?"

"They're around," Katsu answered dismissively, and Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"Sure about that?" he asked dryly.

Katsu sighed, exasperated.

"Yes, Hajime, I am," she said irritably. "Why don't you be useful and help Toshi with the bags, huh?"

"Hag," he muttered under his breath; Eiji heard him and snickered, and was rewarded with a whack to the back of the head.

"What're you laughing at?" Saitou demanded. "You're helping."

Eiji sent him a dismayed look.

"Aw what for?" he whined.

"For being obnoxious," Saitou replied, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and shoving him over to where his hapless brother-in-law was already loading himself down with bags.

"Teru! Toshikazu!" Katsu bellowed. "Your lazy uncle finally showed up, come on!"

"Show you lazy, you old witch," Saitou muttered, scowling, as he hefted up two ridiculously heavy bags.

Tokio heard him this time, and sent him a black look and slapped his shoulder—like _hard_, though.

"_Ow_!" he complained. "What was that for?"

"Stop acting like a child," she ordered, and he pulled a face that would have been a pout on anyone else.

Saitou, Eiji and Toshiaki split the baggage between them while Katsu herded her two oldest into the elevator with Tokio's help, and the group enjoyed (if by "enjoyed" one meant "suffered through") a very up-close-and-personal ride up to the 8th floor.

Saitou, of course, ended up between the wall and his brother-in-law, who looked at Tokio, then at Saitou, and grinned lecherously, wagging his eyebrows in perverted approval. Saitou glared at him:

"Boy, hit the button again," he ordered through gritted teeth.

"I did, Hajime-oji," Eiji replied.

"Do it again."

"Why?"

"This glorified coffin on a string might go faster."

"That never works."

"I can dream, can't I?"

They reached the floor, finally, and got off the "glorified coffin on a string," and Tokio led the way to the apartment, she and Katsu talking about woman-type things.

Saitou _guessed_, at any rate—he was far too busy trying to make his brother-in-law burst into flames through sheer will alone.

Nothing yet, but you never knew….

Tokio opened the door to the apartment, and they trooped in slowly, as Katsu had to help Teru and Toshikazu take off their shoes, which was a very long and drawn out affair because they were seven and four, respectively, and it was like some kind of rule that anyone under the age of ten _had_ _to take forever_ _to do anything_, even if it was something simple.

Once everyone had gotten into the apartment, and the bags were dumped on the floor, Katsu decided to lay into her brother, apparently because she thought it was one of her duties as the eldest sister:

"Hajime, how could you forget to tell Tokio-san we were coming?"

"I had the fucking _flu_ for the last week and a half!" Saitou snapped. "You coming to Tokyo was kinda low down on the list of priorities!"

"You've known about this trip for months!"

"Knowing something and remembering it aren't the same thing!"

"Don't make excuses for being lazy, Saitou Hajime!"

Before Saitou was able to respond to that, his nephew launched himself at his uncle, and made excruciating contact with a very tender portion of the male anatomy.

"Hajime!" Tokio and Katsu yelled, horrified looks on their faces.

"Oh man, that _hurrrrrt_," Toshiaki said with a wince.

"Is he dead?" Eiji asked, expression appalled.

"I should be so lucky," Saitou was able to get out, sounding like he was about to cry.

Not that anyone would have blamed him.

Katsu grabbed Toshikazu by the ear and began scolding him, and the boy hollered loudly, saying he'd only wanted to say hi to Haji-ji. Tokio, in the mean time, helped Saitou to the bedroom, Eiji and Toshiaki right behind them.

"Here, lay down," Tokio said.

Saitou groaned and did as she'd said, then, rubbing his forehead, yelled,

"SHUT THE FUCK UP."

Katsu and Toshikazu instantly quieted.

"Savage," Tokio muttered.

"Do not _start_ with me, woman," he growled, glaring at her.

"Might wanna put some ice on…you know," Toshiaki said, coughing into his fist.

"Toshiaki, go away," Saitou snapped.

Tokio glared at him (which he ignored), then sent Toshiaki a sheepish look.

"I'm sorry, Soma-san," she said sincerely.

Toshiaki grinned.

"Oh that's all right—after what just happened, he's entitled to be a little cranky."

"I'm in the fucking room, so could you not talk about me like I'm not here?" Saitou snapped.

"Eiji, would you mind getting me a bag of ice and a towel?" Tokio asked wearily.

"Sure," Eiji said, still looking quite horrified.

"I sure hope you weren't planning anything _special_ tonight, Haji," Toshiaki said with a lascivious grin.

"Get _lost_, Soma!"

"Going, going," the man said, holding both hands up and retreating.

"Not far enough," Saitou muttered bitterly.

"Hajime," Tokio said in disapproval.

"If I ever get a hard-on again, it'll be a miracle," he said, rubbing his forehead harder. "Never mind have children."

Tokio sighed, then leaned over and laid her head on his chest.

"Eiji'll be back with the ice in a little bit," she said, kissing his chest.

He didn't reply, instead threading his fingers through her hair and sighing.

When Eiji returned with the bag of ice wrapped in a towel, Saitou sourly accepted it and, grimacing, settled it down over his crotch.

"This sucks," he said darkly.

"Yeah," Eiji said solemnly, settling down on the bed next to Saitou and putting a hand on his guardian's head.

Tokio smiled faintly, then leaned over and kissed Saitou and ruffled Eiji's hair.

"I'll get your sister settled in," she offered.

"'Settled in'?" Saitou parroted, horrified. "Tokio, they can't stay here. We don't have room for them!"

"Well they can't stay with your parents," she replied. "You told me they were still staying with your brother because the renovations on the house weren't finished yet. Which means your brother's is out too."

"Or they could stay at a hotel," Saitou replied.

Tokio sent him a scandalized look.

"Hajime!"

"What? Look, we don't have the space for them!"

"It's just a week," Tokio argued. "We can deal for a week. And I am not going out there and telling your sister that her own brother is tossing her out."

"Fine, tell her to come in here and I'll do it."

"_Hajime_!"

"What—? _Ow_!" Saitou yelled when Tokio smacked him. "What the hell, woman?!"

"How could you say that?! That's horrible!"

"What's horrible?" Katsu asked, peeking into the room. "You okay Hajime?"

"Fucking awesome, how do you think?" Saitou returned, glaring at her. "Mind keeping your spawn under control?"

Katsu glared at him.

"He just wanted to say hi, jerk," she said. "As much as you hate children I don't understand why you adopted one."

"This one's never tried to sterilize me," Saitou shot back, jerking his thumb in Eiji's direction.

"That's _enough_, Hajime," Tokio said, whacking his arm again, making him hiss and glare at her.

"Oh is that how you keep him in line?" Katsu asked dryly, looking amused.

"Ha ha ha," Saitou muttered; Eiji gave his head a sympathetic pat.

"Hajime and I were just deciding on how to accommodate you all, Katsu-san," Tokio politely said.

"Not here, we're not," Saitou said.

"Hajime—"

"Tokio, I didn't have you, the boy or the dog here when my sister first told me about this," Saitou interrupted, talking over her. "I had the space for five extra people—I don't anymore."

"_Your sister_ is not staying in a _hotel_," Tokio snapped.

"We don't have the money for that," Katsu agreed, leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed over her chest.

And it was only because of the way she was standing that Saitou noticed the little soup bowl sized swell that hadn't been there when he'd seen his sister last year:

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me?!" he asked, incredulous.

"What?" Tokio and Katsu asked in surprised unison.

"You're knocked up _again_?" Saitou demanded. "Son of a bitch, Katsu!"

"You noticed?" Katsu asked, her shock on her face.

"Of course I noticed! They pay me to notice shit! What the hell, Katsu! Three kids isn't enough?"

"Well I don't see you having any!" Katsu snapped, glaring at him. "At least Mom and Dad will be able to enjoy their grandchildren before they die! They're lucky they didn't have to depend on you, or they'd never get any!"

"Go to hell!" Saitou snarled.

"Oi, keep it civil," Tokio advised, sending him a warning look.

"She started it," Saitou grumbled.

"She's pregnant."

"Her son tried to neuter me."

"You've survived attempts by far more capable sources," Tokio said dryly.

"Feh—your bat-shit insane father never got as close as Toshikazu did," Saitou muttered. "Kid could give him lessons."

"Your sister still needs somewhere to stay, Hajime," Tokio reminded him.

"We don't have the space," Saitou repeated, his patience wearing thin.

"We can deal for a week," Tokio replied.

"Tokio—" Saitou began.

Tokio turned to Katsu, smiled and completely ignored him:

"It'll be a tight fit, Katsu-san, since space is at a premium, but I think with a little moving around, you all should be able to fit in Eiji's room."

"Where'm I gonna sleep?" Eiji asked.

"In here with us," Tokio replied.

Saitou and Eiji sent her matching looks of horror.

"_What_?!" they shouted in unison.

Tokio, again, ignored them. She rose and went over to the doorway and ushered Katsu out, so as to share her ideas on making everyone fit with the older woman.

Saitou and Eiji watched them walk out, and then Eiji sent his guardian a distraught look.

"Was she serious?" he asked.

"Yes," Saitou muttered, scowling.

This was going to be a _long_ week.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

A few hours later, Saitou wasn't in as horrific a mood, though he was by no means in a good one.

He was still sore, but able to walk without assistance, so that was one good thing.

About the only one, though.

Eiji set up a sleeping bag he'd borrowed from Soujirou on the floor of Saitou and Tokio's room, on Tokio's side of the bed, next to the sliding glass doors, and dragged Hachi's bed over to that side too. The result was that Tokio either had to use Saitou's side or the foot of the bed if she wanted to get into the bed or out of it.

Eiji's bureau was also moved into their room, to make space for Eiji's sleeping bag, which Teru and Toshikazu and the youngest child, Goro, were sharing; the children's parents had the fold-out couch.

"This feels weird," Eiji said, frowning.

"Tell me about it," Saitou muttered.

Their door wasn't exactly closed to Eiji—if he ever needed them in the middle of the night, he was free to rouse them, and their bedroom had sort of become the gathering point for everyone, since there wasn't an actual living room to speak of. But the adults had their privacy and Eiji had his, and that was gone now that they were sharing a room.

For Eiji, that meant he couldn't read his manga when he should have been asleep, or play with his Nintendo DS (a gift from Tokio's parents, who had decided Eiji was as good as their grandson and acted accordingly), without his guardians finding out.

For Saitou, that meant he wasn't going to be getting laid.

And yeah, he wasn't really in any position to be thinking about that currently, but he wasn't going to be out of commission the _whole_ week.

A week without sex was _very_ not cool, as far as he was concerned.

"You'll live," Tokio informed him when he made complaint.

"If you call that living," he groused, scowling.

"Hajime, it's a _week_," she said, amusement and exasperation in her voice. "It's not forever."

"Might as well be."

"Stop that," she ordered, swatting him. "One week won't kill you."

He made no further comment, since it was useless to continue the conversation; she wasn't taking it seriously. He decided to just wait a few days, see how seriously she took it then—Tokio enjoyed their more intimate activities as much as he did, even if she fancied herself above admitting so. She'd be singing a very different tune soon enough, though.

Saitou knew his woman, after all.

Dinner was a chaotic affair. Not that this was somehow different from other, past dinners when his sister and her family were in town and had been forced on him (because it really wasn't), but with space at a premium, this year seemed especially bad.

And then there was the whole Tokio-almost-punching-Katsu-in-the-throat thing.

Okay, fine, maybe not quite _that_ bad, but still pretty catastrophic.

It began when Katsu made the tactical error of treating Tokio as if she were as hopelessly un-domestic as he was.

Really. Bad. Move.

Saitou loved his sister (not that one could tell this automatically by watching them interact…), but Katsu was a rather overbearing personality in large doses. Or even small ones. She had to be in charge of everything, something he suspected stemmed from her being the oldest. It was why she micromanaged his life for him while she was in town, and why they fought so often, and why Saitou preferred talking to her once or twice a month, if that.

It was also why he wasn't at all surprised when she elected herself in charge of dinner and relegated Tokio to mere helper without asking.

"I couldn't ask you to cook, Katsu-san," Tokio said stiffly, standing tall and tense before Saitou's sister. "You've just finished a very long trip, and you must be tired."

Katsu waved her off and walked around her to the fridge, and Tokio visibly bristled.

"I'm cooking," Katsu said. "You can help if you want."

Tokio's eyes narrowed and a muscle in her jaw started to jump; Eiji tugged on Saitou's sleeve.

"Hajime-oji, Tokio-oba looks real mad," he murmured.

"She's all right," Saitou said dismissively, waiting for Tokio to send his sister to hell and wondering why she hadn't yet; she didn't even let _him_ get away with talking to her like that, and as far as he was concerned, he was really the only person on the planet who had the right to, not that he would.

It always led to her telling him to go drop dead, which ultimately led to some of their worst fights, after all….

"Katsu-san, I'd really rather you didn't," Tokio said, clearly fighting to be polite.

"My family eats a very particular diet, Tokio-san," Katsu said, not bothering to turn around and look at her.

"I can accommodate you," Tokio returned.

Katsu looked over her shoulder, expression plainly stating that she rather highly doubted that, and Saitou frowned, not liking the expression even a little.

"I'm sure," Katsu said, tone tinged with condescension, "you could, Tokio-san."

Tokio's back straightened even more, enough that Saitou honestly believed she was in danger of snapping it. Before she could open her mouth to say anything—or leap on Katsu and deliver brutal death, which was the one he had his money on—Saitou curtly said,

"Katsu, sit the fuck down."

His sister sent him an annoyed look.

"I'm cooking, Hajime," she snapped.

"Not in Tokio's goddamn kitchen you're not. Sit. Down," he repeated, voice deadly.

She glared at him, but backed down and surrendered the territory, and Saitou waited until she was occupied with her youngest to go over to where a still very stiff Tokio was jerkily going about getting a meal started. He walked up behind her, put his hands over hers and said,

"Don't you ever let her talk down to you again."

"She's your sister and a guest—" Tokio began.

"I don't care," he interrupted sharply. "Fuck her. You live here, not her."

"Hajime," she said, voice quiet and disapproving.

"No, Tokio. You talk back. And if she gets offended, tough shit. If you don't say anything she'll think it's all right to walk all over you, and the hell I'm going to let that shit happen."

She was quiet for a moment, then leaned her head back enough to look at him.

"Thank you jerk face," she said with a tiny smile.

"You're welcome pain in the ass," he said, kissing her forehead. "Guess what else?"

"What?"

"You're not cooking."

She frowned.

"But your sister said—"

"Too late, I'm ordering take-out and she's just going to have to deal. No way am I letting you cook for her after she tried to pull that shit."

"Child," she said with a sigh, and he grinned and nosed her hair, hands moving from her hands to her belly.

"If it bothered you so much you wouldn't be here," he said smugly.

"I plead insanity," she said dryly.

"Mean," he muttered.

"Go irritate your sister," she ordered, and he smirked and nipped her ear before moving toward the phone.

"With pleasure," he said deviously, making her laugh.

Katsu was quite annoyed, as he'd known she would be, when he informed her that he'd taken it upon himself to call up a place and order, among other things, soba for dinner. Toshiaki rather meekly convinced his wife one night wouldn't hurt anything, and she grumblingly agreed, and Saitou got both soba for dinner and the knowledge that he had succeeded in absolutely pissing his sister off by not letting her get her way at all.

It was really enough to make him fairly glow with pride in his handiwork.

Saitou was ready to go against tradition and every teaching his mother had drilled into him by denying Toshiaki and Katsu and their children first crack at the bath room in favor of his "pack," but Tokio convinced him he'd been petty enough for one night, and he allowed his houseguests to go ahead, though not graciously.

Tokio then insisted Saitou take Eiji with him, to save time, since Eiji had school tomorrow and it was already late. This was another deviation, as Saitou and Eiji typically completed their ablutions separately, but since Tokio had a point Saitou held his peace and took the boy with him. It wasn't terrible, necessarily, since Eiji appeared to enjoy the extra one-on-one time with his guardian, and Saitou didn't especially mind having the boy with him.

"Oi, Hajime-oji?" Eiji asked while Saitou washed his hair. Saitou grunted. "How come you an' Katsu-san fight so much?"

"'Cause she's a harpy," he muttered.

"What's that?"

"A woman who has a bad temper and thinks it's her god-given right to make everyone else around her miserable."

"Oh. Tokio-oba said Katsu-san's just tired and cranky from her trip."

"Che—hag was born cranky," Saitou muttered. "Close your eyes."

The boy did as ordered and Saitou rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, then swiped his hair back off his forehead the way his mother had done for him when he was a kid.

The truth was Tokio was probably right; Katsu was generally okay, until she started telling him he was doing everything wrong and basically making him feel like he was lucky to have made it this far on his own without maiming himself with a towel or something. Plus, she was pregnant (for the _fourth_ time—and Tokio had thought he was kidding when he said Katsu got knocked up every other year), and pregnant women tended to be moody and hormonal, or so lore went.

But he was still irritated that his sister had tried to dominate Tokio. He knew it wasn't a conscious thing, that it was just Katsu's personality, but that didn't change the way he felt about it. He didn't like that his woman had been disrespected in his home—that she had been disrespected by family was worse as far as he was concerned. He was also irritated with himself for not realizing sooner that Tokio would never have dared talk back to his sister, even though she would have been within her rights. In Tokio's mind, Katsu was a guest and should always be treated like one, and above all she was his sister. Having observed her with her brother, he should have been expecting her to be hesitant to say anything outright to the woman; she and Morinusuke treated each other with a much higher degree of regard and respect than he and his siblings practiced among each other. On top of that, this was her first meeting with Katsu, and Tokio was pretty uptight about making a good impression when she met his family. It had been supremely dumb of him to expect her to treat Katsu the way he did.

She might be his tribe and speak his language, but Tokio was far more civilized than he could claim to be, at heart, and he sometimes forgot that.

As soon as Eiji was all set, Saitou sent him to bed, with dire threats to his person if he found the boy not in his sleeping bag when he reached the room. He doubted the threat worked—Eiji was used to hearing them at this point, and repetition did tend to dull the potency of things—but by now it was force of habit more than anything.

Not that he wasn't sincere in his promise of swift retaliation should the boy decide it was safe to ignore him, of course….

Saitou finished and left the bath room after donning his sleep attire. He grunted a good-night to his sister and brother-in-law, and (_very_ carefully) submitted to good-night hugs and kisses from his niece and nephews before entering his bedroom—now his sole and very cramped refuge—and shutting the door. Eiji and Hachi were laying on either side of Tokio, Hachi with his head on her stomach and Eiji with his head on her shoulder, one of her arms slung around him while they played Sudoku on his DS together. At his entrance, Hachi had opened his eyes and looked over, ears pricked forward and alert, and Saitou smirked faintly, noticing that the hunted look on the dog's face disappeared upon realizing who it was; when his niece and nephews had realized he now had a dog, they had tormented the poor Akita until it had run into his and Tokio's room and hidden under the bed to the best of its ability. Tokio and Eiji looked over too, and Tokio smiled at him; Eiji went back to his game once he saw who it was.

"Everyone settled in?" Tokio asked.

"Yes," he said, walking over to the bed and staring down at Hachi, who looked up at him, ears pressed back, before carefully rising and vacating the spot next to Tokio, who was smiling and desperately trying to keep from laughing.

"Here Hachi," Eiji said, patting the space next to him, and the Akita looked over at Saitou and waited for his nod before he settled down next to the boy, his head on Eiji's stomach, gaze on Saitou.

"I find it a little frightening that he listens to you as well as he does," Tokio said as Saitou stretched out next to her.

"He knows who the head of his household is," Saitou replied, reaching over to rub the Akita's head before putting an arm around Tokio and absently ruffling Eiji's hair in the process. "Put the six there," he added.

"Where?" Eiji asked.

"There," Saitou said, pointing at the spot.

Eiji immediately did so.

"Oi!" Tokio said, sending him a wounded look. "How come you didn't give him the third degree?"

Saitou smirked and rubbed her belly through her sleep shirt; he'd much rather slip a hand under the shirt to touch soft, warm skin, but that wasn't appropriate in front of the boy.

"He knows who the head of his household is," he said smugly.

"Oh shut up you obnoxious jerk," Tokio murmured, pushing his smirking face away from her own and making Eiji laugh.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away, then leaned down and kissed her cheek.

"You like that I'm obnoxious," he said, still smug.

"Whatever lies you have to tell yourself," she replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

"That is a very unfair retaliatory tactic, Chiisai," he said with a speaking look, and she blushed.

"Why?" Eiji asked, expression curious.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Saitou said, and Eiji pouted.

"You always say that," he complained, and Saitou gave him a warning smack on the head before immediately rubbing the sting away, to show he wasn't actually annoyed.

"Get used to it, then," he said, and Eiji's pout deepened but he didn't say anything else about it, and the three of them finished the game before Saitou invoked his right as head of household to order the boy to sleep.

Eiji kissed Tokio good-night and hugged Saitou; it was a fairly new affectionate gesture from his ward, one that had surprised him but one he submitted to with few qualms. He had mentioned to Tokio that in another year he'd have to put a stop to it, as it wasn't an appropriate gesture between men, but she had been surprisingly vehement in her protests. No amount of arguing would make her change her mind, and he'd finally decided to stop bothering to try to. He'd also decided he might just play it by ear.

The boy and the dog vacated the bed and settled down in their respective places, and he and Tokio settled down under the sheets, Tokio burrowed into his side as was her custom. He reached over, flicked the lamp on his bedside table off and plunged the room into darkness. Then he reached down, took hold of the arm draped over his chest and lifted it up so he could kiss the underside of her wrist before settling it down on his chest again, his hand over it. She returned his affection by leaning up and kissing the side of his neck; he felt her smile against his skin and smiled in response.

Not a bad way to end a crap day, he decided.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

The next morning was less pleasant.

Tokio had thought Saitou was overreacting. She had been a little irritated that he hadn't told her his sister was going to be in town, but since he'd been sick she'd decided to cut him some slack; he was only now beginning to make any headway on all of the paperwork he'd missed while he'd been out, and he wouldn't be all caught up for a while yet. He had been understandably occupied trying to unravel the truly horrifying amount of red tape he'd been unable to attend to while sick.

It was a tight fit, eight people and a dog in one two-room apartment, but since it was only for a week, she didn't mind. And his sister had gotten Tokio's back up a little (okay, _a lot_), but Saitou had backed her up, and she had been delighted with it, despite outward appearances. It had meant a lot to her that he had reinforced her position in his life, and that he'd done it in front of his family.

As a result, she had been willing to qualify the day, hiccups aside, as a success.

The next day, however, was an entirely different story.

She had been sound asleep, dreaming about locking Enishi in Kamatari's office with the effeminate man in retaliation for something or another that he'd done to piss her off during the course of her dream, when she suddenly felt as though someone were watching her. The unsettling feeling immediately pulled her out of her dream and sleep, and she opened bleary eyes to find herself nose to nose with Toshiaki, who grinned upon seeing her awake.

"Morning Tokio-san—" he blithely got out, before Tokio reacted the way any woman would have when found face-to-face with a, for all intents and purposes, strange man.

She screamed and threw herself back from him as much as she was able to, Saitou's warm bulk blocking her escape the way it was.

Tokio's shriek ripped Saitou from dead sleep.

"What?" he snapped, sitting up and ready to kill whatever it was that was trespassing in his territory.

"Yo Haji," Katsu's husband cheerfully said, complete with smile and wave. "I was just askin' Tokio-san where the frying pan was."

Saitou stared at him.

"Get out," he said finally, his disbelief clear in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm gonna make break—"

"No asshat—I mean _get out_," Saitou interrupted. "As in, _get out_ of _our_ room."

"But the frying pan—" Toshiaki protested.

"GET THE FUCK OUT."

His brother-in-law beat a hasty retreat for the open door.

"What about the frying pan?" he asked a moment later, poking his head back in, only to have a very angry Saitou grab his face and shove him out of the room before slamming the door shut.

He turned back to the bed, scowling darkly, and found Tokio with an arm draped over her eyes, her other hand clutching her chest over her heart.

"Fucking idiot," Saitou growled, walking back to the bed and sitting down. He reached over and grabbed Tokio's wrist and pulled her arm off her eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said with a sigh, opening her eyes and sending him a sheepish look. "He just scared the ever-loving hell out of me, that's all."

Eiji's head popped up on Tokio's side.

"Is it morning?" he asked, and the two adults looked over at him.

"I'm sorry sweetheart," Tokio said unhappily, only now realizing she'd likely awakened everyone in the apartment with her scream, if not the entire floor.

"Go back to sleep," Saitou said to the boy.

Eiji yawned and rubbed an eye.

"Okay," he said sleepily.

Tokio patted the bed.

"Come on," she said, and Eiji grinned sleepily and crawled up next to her, snuggling against her side.

Saitou watched his ward make himself comfortable, then decided that since he was already up, he might as well go out and break his foot in Toshiaki's ass for daring to violate his sanctuary (he was also very pissed off with himself for not realizing his sanctuary had been breached, and beating on Toshiaki would make him feel much better, he knew). He rose to do just that, but was stopped when Tokio asked,

"You aren't staying?"

"I have to see an idiot about his brutal death," he replied, and she rolled her eyes.

"Hajime, come back to bed."

"It won't take long, trust me," he said.

"I'm sure it won't, you crazy, but he'll still be there later. Besides, the bed gets cold without you. Please?"

He considered his options: warm bed and warm Tokio, or killing Toshiaki.

Both were alluring options, for entirely different reasons, though the former was dulled considerably by the fact that there would be no fooling around, since the boy was not only in the room with them, but in the same bed.

In the end, though, he supposed Tokio had a point, and besides that, she was a much more pleasant diversion than Toshiaki. So he joined his ward and woman again, and after a moment, Hachi's head appeared at the foot of the bed, pleading gaze on Saitou. Man and dog silently eyed each other for several minutes in silence. Then Saitou relented:

"Come," he said wearily, snapping his fingers, and the dog leapt up onto the mattress and curled up at the foot.

Beside him, Tokio laughed quietly, and he slipped his hand back under the sheets, this time giving into his preferences and continuing on under her sleep shirt. The feel of the warm, soft skin of her belly under his fingertips was extremely gratifying.

"Some way to start the day, hmm?" she asked, nuzzling his cheek.

"Get used to it," he murmured, kissing her forehead. "Normal, everyday life as you've known it is official over for the duration of the Soma family's stay."

She sighed and kissed his cheek; he only settled down more comfortably beside her and nuzzled her temple.

"Go back to sleep—if Soma tries to ask you about the frying pan again, I'll Gatotsu his ass out of the apartment." he murmured, and she laughed quietly.

"Thank you Hajime," she said, her amusement clear in her voice.

He buried his nose in her hair and decided to try and relax and enjoy being curled up in bed with her before the alarm went off.

Sleep just wasn't going to be happening for him after the wake-up call he'd gotten.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

By the third day, Tokio was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Saitou had been right.

Not that she'd ever say anything out loud to him, of course, but….

She, Saitou and Eiji had taken to waking early (so as to avoid anymore surprise wake-ups by in-laws wondering where the frying pan was hiding today) and having a quiet breakfast together before their guests began waking and their time together died abruptly. Tokio was surprised at how much it bothered her that their routine had been interrupted. She missed waking up to Saitou's amorous advances (even if she didn't always accommodate him); she missed making breakfast with Eiji and having him watch her put his bento together; she missed listening to her boys argue about some ridiculous thing or another; she missed going to take Hachi for his morning walk with Eiji and sometimes Saitou, who was usually smoking placidly, eyes restlessly roving and making sure his "pack" wasn't in danger; she missed coming home and being able to relax, either alone in her room or with Eiji, or, if he was home, Saitou; she missed cooking dinner with Saitou; she missed his and Eiji's always entertaining homework sessions; she missed being able to straddle the man in the privacy of their room whenever she felt like it (which was often, she realized now); she missed being able to sprawl over him, warm and naked and happy, and not having to worry that it was inappropriate or that Eiji might come in at any moment.

She missed, in short, her life as it had been for the past two, almost three months.

_Good gods_, had it really only been _three days_?

And did they _really_ have _four more_ to go before things returned to normal?

Saitou wasn't taking it any better than she was; her Wolf, she had quickly learned, did not like his schedule fucked with, and he was liable to get very cranky if anything interfered with it. It was something about him that amused her immensely, the way he demanded that everything in his life adhere to his established routine. He was flexible, mind, but only if there was absolutely no way he was going to get exactly his way.

Child.

But much more than her or Saitou, Eiji was the one suffering the most, the one most affected by the upheaval Katsu and her family caused. That was never more apparent than the third morning, when they were sitting at the table, eating breakfast and trying to ignore the strangeness of eating a full half hour earlier than was their norm.

They had finally reached a semblance of normalcy when the door to Eiji's room opened, and Toshiaki—_completely naked_—stumbled out, bleary-eyed, and slurred a nearly indecipherable "Good morning" that never quite made it to their ears, since shock and horror had set in by then, before continuing to the toilet. The three watched in utter, silent revulsion, unable to not look despite not wanting to; it was like a car wreck on the side of the road. Once Toshiaki had disappeared, they all looked at each other, no one quite able to articulate…_anything_, really. Saitou took one look at his breakfast, then groaned and pushed it away; Tokio had a similar reaction, pushing her plate away with a grimace. Eiji, in the meantime, was completely distraught by the implications of Toshiaki's au natural state:

"I'm _never_ sleepin' in that bed again!" he blurted.

"Course you aren't," Saitou muttered, making a face, "I'm burnin' the fuckin' thing as soon as they leave."

"Sheets too," Tokio added in a quiet, rushed voice, taking a sip from her tea cup, the only thing she could consume without cringing.

"Feh, _definitely_," Saitou said.

There was a pause, and then Eiji quietly asked,

"Can we skip breakfast?"

"Yes," both adults quickly said, rising.

"Good," Eiji said, jumping up and helping them clear the table.

When Saitou mentioned it to Katsu ("Oi, you mind keeping your fucktard husband clothed while he's in my house? I could have died happy—_deliriously_ happy—not knowing what the idiot was packing."), the older woman immediately apologized, clearly embarrassed to have caused Tokio and Eiji any discomfort.

"He sleeps that way," she explained.

"Didn't need to know that, thanks," Saitou said tightly, glaring at her.

"Don't be such a baby!" Katsu snapped.

"I saw your husband's dick and balls against my fucking will, I'll be a baby if I want to!" Saitou snapped back.

"Okay, okay!" Tokio said loudly, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Katsu-san, we'd just really appreciate it if Toshiaki-san wore some…_pants_, at least, around the house."

"I understand, don't worry, it won't happen again," Katsu assured, and Tokio nodded, smiling, and looped her arms around Saitou's neck.

"Thank you," she said, resting her chin atop his head.

He grumbled, but not loud enough that she could make out what he'd said, so she didn't say anything or retaliate.

Katsu watched them, then smirked, and Tokio silently marveled at how much brother and sister looked alike when they did that.

"Gods bless you, Tokio-san, for putting up with Haji."

"Fuck you," Saitou muttered, and Tokio knew his sister was being treated to one of the nastier looks in his repertoire.

"Hajime," Tokio said in warning. "Be nice."

"No," he said petulantly, and his sister's smirk widened.

"The Wolf will play nice or he's going to be very unhappy," Tokio warned.

"I already am," he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.

Tokio smirked and kissed the top of his head.

"Sweetheart, this is child's play compared to what I'm capable of," she said, tone amused. "So be a good little Wolf, please."

"Feh," was all Saitou had to offer.

Katsu chuckled.

"Brat," she teased, tone affectionate.

"Hag," he shot back, and Katsu threw back her head and laughed.

"Still no manners, eh Haji-_chan_?" she taunted, and Tokio bit back a smile; clearly, Saitou had learned how to be obnoxious from his sister. "I expect you drive poor, sweet Tokio-san to drink."

"Only now and then," Tokio said, unable to resist teasing Saitou a little.

"Ho ho! You're made of stronger stuff than I am, then, Tokio-san," Katsu said, eyes dancing mischievously, a smirk of utter deviousness on her face. "My little brother's quite the hell-raiser. You'd think being a police officer would do something about that, but not our Haji-chan."

"I hate you," Saitou muttered, and Tokio laughed and hugged him.

He was such a baby, she thought with equal parts affection and exasperation when he complained later about her joining his sister in tormenting him.

"Oh shut up," she said, swatting his arm. "I've said worse things to you."

"You didn't mean any of them," he said churlishly, glaring at her.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Really? And wherever did you get that idea from?" she asked mildly, and his expression changed from petulant to unpleasantly surprised.

"_What_?" he demanded, a little too loudly.

Tokio took immense pleasure in not answering his questions the rest of that evening.

Silly Wolf—what his sister had done to him was downright _sweet_ by comparison.

The next morning was worse than the previous one, something Tokio had believed impossible.

The three of them had gotten up as usual and were getting put together. Eiji was pestering Saitou about something or another when Tokio left the room in her robe to wash her face and brush her teeth. She was in the middle of the second task when the door opened and Toshiaki, eyes more shut than open and hair sticking up in all directions, appeared. Tokio was relieved to see he was wearing a pair of boxers; they weren't pants, fine, but they were covering all the necessary bits and that was what she cared about.

He shuffled in and gave her butt a pat, which caused her to choke in shock—possibly on air, possibly on toothpaste, possibly on her toothbrush, she wasn't really sure which was the right answer.

_What in the name of all that was good and holy—?!_

She heard him slur "G'mornin' Katsu," but it didn't quite compute. She couldn't believe he'd done that. She would admit that Toshiaki could be thoughtless, but he wasn't stupid: the man knew better than to treat her in any manner with even the potential to be inappropriate—Saitou would kill him without a single quibble.

She thus concluded that Toshiaki didn't know it was her and not his wife, as he apparently had thought. Resolved not to make an issue out of it, she went back to brushing her teeth…

…and noticed that Toshiaki was standing before the toilet, and it sounded like something of the liquid variety was being poured into the bowl.

She promptly spat into the sink and fled, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her robe.

She'd take a cavity over staying in there another second, goddamn it….

Her boys looked up when she bolted into the room and slammed the door shut.

"What the hell was that?" Saitou asked, staring at her like she'd gone insane.

"Nothing," she said, leaning back against the door.

"Your cheeks are red, Tokio-oba," Eiji said curiously.

"What's wrong with you?" Saitou demanded. "If you say nothing, woman, so help me gods," he added with a glare when she opened her mouth.

"Uhm, well, I was brushing my teeth, you know? And—well—that is—your brother-in-law sort of…he, uh—came in while I was brushing my teeth and he—he—uhm, used the toilet?"

Saitou and Eiji blankly stared at her in silence for a few moments. Then Saitou asked,

"_What_?"

"Yeah," Tokio said with a nod, knowing that "_What_?" actually meant "Are you _serious_?"

"Gross," Eiji said, expression twisted in distaste.

"_Yeah_," Tokio agreed, her nod far more emphatic this time. "_Very_ yeah."

Saitou, expression thunderous, got up and made for the door, and Tokio had a sudden vision of Toshiaki being flung off the balcony to his death.

"No!" She threw her arms out and planted herself before the door.

His displeasure visibly grew.

"Tokio," he said, tone warning.

"Hajime," she said in the exact same tone.

"He's asking for it," he said.

"No," she said. "He was half asleep and didn't even realize I was there—" (_Which is absolutely true_, she silently added, deciding Saitou didn't need to know the other bit or she'd be meeting the rest of his family at Toshiaki's funeral) "—it was just a tiny little misunderstanding, and I'm not letting you beat the poor man senseless when he wasn't even aware of what he did to deserve it."

He glared at her, but she remained firm, and he finally let out a snort of disgust and relaxed. She sighed and lowered her arms.

"Thank you."

"If I can't kill him I'm picking on him," he warned.

"As long as you do it nicely," she said, vaguely amused when he rolled his eyes.

"Uh-huh," was his dry response.

She walked to him and hugged him, and was pleased when he hugged back, even if it was reluctantly. She leaned her head against his chest and sighed. Eiji rolled his eyes and muttered something about them being schmoopy before he slipped off the bed and onto the sleeping bag he was using, apparently deciding to leave them to their schmoopy-ness. She smiled and nosed Saitou's chest; he idly rubbed the back of her neck in response, his other hand warm on her lower back. She suddenly remembered Toshiaki's touching her ass, and decided Saitou ought to reaffirm his ownership (as he'd once oh-so-humbly called it) of said backside. So she reached back, grabbed the wrist of the hand at the small of her back and pushed it lower. He looked down at her, clearly surprised.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She smiled up at him. "Just keeping with tradition," she said blithely.

He eyed her oddly for several moments, then shook his head.

"You're a very strange woman, Chiisai," he said, nevertheless sounding amused by her strangeness.

She only smiled wider up at him and leaned up to kiss him; he obligingly leaned down to meet her halfway.

"You taste like toothpaste," he said, and behind him, Eiji groaned.

"You guys are _so gross_ in the mornings," the child said despondently.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

"Why do you hate me?" Saitou asked despairingly.

"Oh stop," Katsu replied, rolling her eyes. "I don't hate you, you ahou."

"The fact that you brought your fucktard husband says different," Saitou muttered petulantly.

"Hajime, what was I supposed to do, leave him home?"

"Uhhh, _duh_?"

Katsu again rolled her eyes at her little brother and went back to watching her husband and children run themselves ragged in the neighborhood park; she and her brother were sharing one of the benches off to the side.

"If I hated you, I wouldn't have agreed to spend all of tomorrow with Mom and Dad like you asked me to," she pointed out, grinning when her husband grabbed their daughter and swung her up into the air, making her shriek with laughter.

Beside her, Saitou shifted, scowling slightly.

"I guess," he mumbled. "Still say you should have left him home."

"And travel from Nara to Tokyo with three hyperactive kids under the age of ten by myself? Dream on, Haji." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and smiled.

_My baby brother, all grown up_, she thought, amused. _Sort of_, she added, seeing the pout on his face.

She had been surprised to find Tokio living with him—he hadn't told their mother about that. About Eiji, yes—and she had been charmed by the boy the first night, all her worries about her brother's ability to raise children firmly put to rest upon watching the two interact—but she had thought Tokio was living elsewhere. She had been surprised by the discovery, but pleased, and she knew their mother was going to be equally pleased; the family had been worrying that Tokio was just another in a long line of women their Haji-chan wasn't really serious about. She was curious and a little amazed that he hadn't taken her to the house yet to meet the family (how had their mother not yet _demanded_ Tokio's presence at dinner with the family?), and a little smug over the fact that she was the first of the family that got to meet the mysterious Tokio that their youngest boy appeared so enamored with.

She liked Tokio, from the beginning. It was abundantly clear that not only could the little woman handle her brother, she had him wrapped around her little finger. They fought a lot, but she had realized quickly that it was harmless bickering. She had also been amused by the woman's tendency to tease Saitou, something that had gotten his back up when Katsu had been around to hear or see it—appeared her baby brother didn't want his older sister to know that his woman teased him.

She snorted softly, smirking.

_Silly baby brother._

"So what do you want me to tell Mom?" she asked conversationally.

"About?"

"Tokio-san, ahou."

He frowned.

"Huh?" he asked, and she rolled her eyes.

"Do I tell her that I met Tokio-san or is it a secret?" she asked.

"Whatever you want," he said dismissively.

"She's gonna pitch a fit, you know," she warned.

"Good thing I won't be there to hear it, huh?"

"Like that'll stop her from calling you and demanding you bring her to the house for dinner."

"House isn't done yet."

"Will be by next week," Katsu said with a grin. "And once Mom hears you've been living with Tokio-san for _months_ now, she's gonna get the house back together in record time so she can invite her over and meet her."

"Feh." was all he had to offer, but it didn't sound very confident, and her grin widened.

"What's her family like?"

"Her mother's nice. She's like Tokio, tiny and elegant. Her old man's a bastard. Her kid brother's all right—he's MPD, Traffic, in Nerima Ward. Old man's MPD in Nerima, too. Criminal. She's got a nut job little sister in Shinjuku, singer in a band. Sister and the old man aren't close."

"I guess I'm going to have to wait to meet them," Katsu said with a sigh. "Honestly, Haji, do you have to rattle shit off like you're giving me a report?"

"Fuck you, I'll tell you however way I damn well please," he muttered back.

She rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder as hard as she could; he shoved back, though not nearly as hard as she knew he was capable of.

"I remember when I was taller than you," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. "You were a lot cuter when I could torture you and you couldn't do anything about it."

"Hag," he said, then kissed the top of her head.

She grinned nostalgically—it was a sort of family secret that as a kid, Saitou had been a veritable sweetheart with his mother and sister, obediently acquiescing to their every whim. Katsu had taken advantage of that shamelessly when she'd been younger, dressing her baby brother up like a doll for her amusement and the amusement of her friends, for example. By the time she'd thought of slathering makeup on him he'd wised up and refused to let her talk him into doing anything. Once he'd hit ten he'd stopped being affectionate, and it had taken a lot of nagging to get him to hug and kiss either his mother or his sister. She'd been caught off guard by how sad it had made her once he'd stopped—she hadn't realized how much she really adored his little-boy affection until it had stopped.

"Haji, remember when you used to come to my room in the middle of the night because you said there was a shadow monster in the closet that wanted to eat you?" she asked, grinning.

He sighed.

"Yes," he said wearily.

"You used to hog all the covers," she added, and he snorted.

"You snored," he said, and she elbowed him in the side.

"Did not," she said.

"It sounded like the train was going through your room," he said, and she heard the grin in his voice.

"Jerk," she said. "I should have let Aki deal with you."

"No way," he said, sounding amused. "You just _loved_ taking care of your baby brother."

"I liked you better than Aki," she said, smiling. "You were of a much better disposition as a baby than he was. He laughed more, though. You were a tough crowd to get laughing as a baby."

"How do you remember this crap?" he asked, sounding vaguely impressed.

She shrugged.

"Just do," she said, grinning when she remembered how he used to sit in her room with her and her friends and listen quietly while they talked about boys. He had been popular with her friends because he was such an agreeable and, to be fair, cute kid.

She reached up and rubbed a few strands of his hair between her fingers.

"What are you doing, crazy?" he asked.

"Remember how I used to put you to sleep?" she asked, grinning.

"No," he said, sounding curious.

"I used to stroke your hair. Remember how you used to have it long? I think Dad finally made Mom take you for a haircut when you were five. She cried. I was so mad when it happened, too—you had really thick, soft hair, and you loved it when Mom or me stroked it."

"Huh," he said, sounding thoughtful. She looked up at him and found him watching Toshiaki and the kids, face relaxed.

_My baby brother_, she thought and felt the urge to laugh.

Her "baby brother" was 31, a grown man in his own right. He had a job that paid well, and came home to a nice woman who knew how to keep him in line and a bright little boy who knew when he was full of shit and wasn't afraid to call him out on it and a dog that knew who the alpha male was.

Looked like he didn't need her fussing over him anymore, she thought ruefully.

"You went and grew up on me, Haji-chan," she said with a sigh.

He scowled at her.

"Could you stop with the Haji-chan shit already?" he asked irritably, and she laughed and slung an arm around him and hugged him.

"Brat," she teased, giving him an affectionate squeeze.

"Hag," he shot back, smoothing the back of her hair down.

_My __**sweet**__ baby brother_, she thought with dry amusement.

Ah, well; she'd make him pay later by teasing him in front of Tokio.

Being older than him didn't mean she had to be more mature, after all.

_XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX_

_Preview of Chapter 40: Putting the "Fun" in "Dysfunction"__:_

When Saitou told Tokio that his mother had asked (read: demanded) that he bring Tokio and Eiji to the house, his Chiisai promptly went crazy.

…_Er_.

--

"Man, she's cute," Hiroaki said, tone admiring. Abruptly, his expression turned lascivious: "She's a tiny little thing, though—how you haven't torn her in half yet cleanin' the gutters, I have no idea, little brother."

Tokio's jaw dropped, Saitou twitched—but _violently_—and Eiji frowned.

"Why would Hajime-oji tear Tokio-oba in half cleaning gutters? We don't have gutters."

"Well Eiji-kun, when a man and a woman love each other very, very much—"

"Hiroaki if you finish that sentence I'll hurt you a hell of a lot worse than I was planning on!" Saitou bellowed as a deeply embarrassed Tokio clapped her palms over one very confused Eiji's ears.

--

Tokio took one look at the picture of baby Saitou in her hand and thought she might die from the utter cuteness of it all: not only had he been delightfully chubby, _he'd had_ _baby_ _curls_.

"Oh gods you were _adorable_!" she said, shocked and possibly a little love struck—would their babies have baby curls too…?

"Told you," he said smugly.

--

There was a long pause, and then Eiji said,

"I still don't understand why you'd tear Tokio-oba in half cleaning gutters, Hajime-oji."

Tokio let out a sound that was half sob, half hiccup, and Saitou closed his eyes and laughed.

"I'm killing my brother tomorrow," he said, still laughing, wondering if today would be the day he finally catapulted off the deep end into the Chasm of Insanity.


End file.
